I Didn't Electrocute Myself!

I did it! I put in my new $20 sconce! I didn't electrocute myself. But I did learn a valuable lesson in my first attempt at hardwiring. When you flip off the circuit breaker, any smoke detectors on that breaker will go off, not immediately mind you, but a few minutes into the project, like right when you have the old fixture off and all the wires are dangling there and the logical side of your brain says, "it's okay, there is no current flowing through those wires, go ahead, touch them" but the survivalist animal part of your brain is very nervous and reeeally wants to flee. Then. That's when all 6 smoke detectors will simultaneously go off and you won't immediately know why but all the kids start freaking out and going into burned pizza battlestations and opening windows (in January in Minnesota) and turning on fans. Then you realize that it was an electrical thing that set them off, not smoke, and that you'll have to get the breaker flipped back on to shut them up, but you have to wire the lights first (2 of them) so you go around with a chair yanking down all the smoke detectors and throwing them in a pile in a bedroom and now there are tons of scary wires hanging down everywhere and the detectors are meekly chirping like dying crickets.

So I figured if I can not electrocute myself while hardwiring two light fixtures with 6 smoke detectors going off, couldn't I add some stripes? I was going for a Schoolhouse Electric look but with a budget much closer to zero. After lots of experimenting with paints, I could NOT get a perfectly sharp, non-bleeding paint line. Grrr.

So I just painted some electrical tape. And stuck it on. Sooooo easy.

Here's how:

Use white electrical tape. Snip a piece off and stick it between two coffee cups.

Now paint 3 coats of your favorite acrylic craft paint.

Snip it off.

And stick it on. Pull tight. The tape is stretchy so if you pull it nice and firm, you can make it curve around the curves of the light shade.

Then I used black electrical tape for the black stripes. Just cut down the length of the tape to make a thin stripe.

And there it is. Almost. Note that at this point the shade is still frosty. I really wanted it to be shiny and porcelain-looking, but still translucent so the light can shine through, like an old schoolhouse fixture. So...2 coats of high gloss polyurethane later...

Yay!

PS When I was done installing the sconces, I texted my husband to say I did it. His reply? "See, that wasn't scary at all, was it?" Hahahaha.