Neon to LED..the “antiques” sign all lit up

I can not tell you how excited I am that my “antiques” neon sign is up and working.  It really makes a statement hanging over my new Frontgate table and chairs, I couldn’t be any more happier with the way it all turned out.

Gorgeous right?  The size, the scale, all so perfect.

To turn this cool old “antiques” sign into a working fixture, I first  took all the neon electrical components out.  Which made it 100 times lighter, neon transformers weigh a ton.  I loved the glass gaskets and thought it would be cool to keep them and light them up from inside.  A couple of them were broken, and I had no clue where to get them.  But wouldn’t you know it, Amazon had them.  What can’t you buy on Amazon right?

The wiring  job was way out of my realm. I used an electrician to do all the electrical work.

From the inside, he placed amber LED’s through all the glass gaskets

The underneath of the sign was in pretty bad shape, so I went to a metal supply place here in San Diego and had them cut me two pieces of sheet metal to fit.  I spray painted the metal with a color I had in my stash called “jade”.   My electrician thought it would be better to use LED down lights rather than halogen lights to save on electricity.  He told me that the light output was a warm white color and it would illuminate the table nicely.  I was skeptical, but I said ok.  So he cut the holes for the LED down lights and screwed the new metal to the bottom.

We get high winds here, so to make it sturdy we used a galvanized pipe as a down rod, and heavy duty chains on both of the original hooks that were on the sign.

Well, I must say, the electrician was right.  I could not believe the beautiful light those LEDs put out!  I took these pictures just about sunset.  The light on the table is perfect

The three lights give a warm wash of light across the whole table.  No dark spots.  Love it!

I am so glad I went with the amber colored LEDs for the glass gaskets.  They are just enough light to light up the words but not too bright like a spot light.  We still need more lighting out in this area, but this was a good start.  I am on the hunt for decorative items to style the table, I am thinking a large dough bowl with plants.

The best part of seeing my light up though was who I got to share it with.  This past weekend these two lovely ladies came and stayed with me

Gail from

And her cutie daughter Jamie

Yep, we all met via blogland 2 years ago and now are real friends!

While they were here, I drug them outside to see the sign light up for the first time.  But it was not lighting up…I was mad and sad all at the same time.  Then all of a sudden, Gail says “it’s on!”  I am sure she will tell you, cause she told me, I ran like a kid in a candy store to go see it.  Yeah, I was not only excited to see the sign up and lit, but to also spend a wonderful 4 days showing my new friends San Diego.  They had never been to California.  What a blast we had.  I miss them already.

{me and Gail at Pacific Beach}

{Gail and Jamie at Seaport Village}

Linking up to Jen’s Weekend Wrap Up Party

Classy Clutter Spotlight Saturday

Funky Junk Interiors SNS

Positively Splendid Saturday Seven Party