Need a replacement idea for the old carriage lights outside your home?

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This project is a great way to step up curb appeal outside your home while showing off your woodworking skills to the entire neighborhood. A simple wooden sign is backlit using a new LED floodlight behind a piece of white acrylic; the sign acts as an address sign during the day and an illuminated accent piece during the dark hours. Use this next to the garage door or even next to the front door - the project build will be the same and the results will speak for themselves.

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Some insights on this project:

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1. I used Poplar for this sign. It was available at my local home center and required little planing/face jointing on my part for the project. So for the convenience and the extra price, it was the best choice for me.

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2. You obviously don't need to have a light behind this sign; you can create this same effect without a light behind the sign and it would still show well during the day. An alternative for lighting at night would be to use a spot light on the sign to show it off (maybe one that is already installed at your location). If you design this sign to include a light behind, make sure you measure for the new light and also leave some extra space so that you can adjust the light and get in there for maintenance down the road (hopefully this is maintenance free for quite some time).

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3. Overall, this really is not an expensive project to complete. Wood panels, glue, reinforcing screws, stain, silicone, and plexiglass are the main materials you need to make the sign. And you can see the anchors that I used in the video for my particular application. You will want to research what type of anchor will work best for your situation.

 

4. For carving the letters, you can use a variety of tools to get this done with good results. A rotary tool, router, chisel, coping saw, jig saw or even a scroll saw could be used for carving the letters out of the wood. Decide what you are most comfortable with. For me, I wanted to work on my router skills so that is why I ultimately ended up using the router, and I was very satisfied with the results. 

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I'd like to give updates on the sign so you can see how it's holding up to the elements. Leave a comment on my YouTube video page to let me know if you'd like me to provide that status.

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Hopefully this gives you some insight on how to create one of these for yourself. Please like and subscribe to the YouTube channel and share the video with your friends. Every little like and share helps keep me in the shop.