Lighting – How to/should I mount this porch light

exteriorlight-fixturelighting

I want to mount a porch light on my outdoor shed/office. I recently had an electrician place interior wiring however I elected to do the fixtures myself.

Uh oh.

Here's what the back of the porch light area looks like (on the inside of the shed):

back interior

Here's what the front looks like:

front exterior

Here's a picture of the light I want to put on the outside:

beacon light

The wall is a solid piece of wood about 1.5 inches thick so I don't think there's room to add a fixture bracket.

So… I'm stumped. How should I attach the light?

Best Answer

A pretty common approach is to build a small platform for the lamp to sit on, something like this

extlamp

This has the advantage of giving you more depth to mount a receptacle box. You can use 3/4 inch material (nominally 1x ) or larger, such as 5/4 stock. You can then cut a hole, using a hole saw through the new block and the siding underneath giving you enough depth for a much deeper box, like this one

plastic round box

It also has the advantage of making it easier to get the base of the lamp vertical.

After the box is set, I would caulk the entry point of the wire and around the box itself. After the lamp is mounted, unless the fixture has its own gasket, caulk around the top, sides and all but a small section of the bottom (a weep hole just incase any moisture gets in.)