My New Magical Breakfast Room Wall Sconces

Last Updated on October 6, 2017 by Kristi Linauer

Okay, full disclosure. They’re not actually magical. 😀 But let me back up a bit.

When I was planning out the electrical wiring for the breakfast room and pantry, I really wanted to add some outlets to the wall with the pantry door. But that wall has a large, very solid load-bearing header running across the top that’s literally holding up the back side of the original roof over this room, so drilling through that header to get wires through it didn’t seem like a wise thing to do.

Fast forward several months to this past week. I decided that I wanted sconces on that wall above where I’ll be hanging artwork on either side. But again, they can’t be hardwired. So I had to find a way to work around it, and the solution is so easy and convenient — remote controlled outlets!! I love these so much that I now want to use these on every plug-in lamp in the house!

So first, these are the sconces I chose…

I found them for a steal ($27 each) on Ebay. I was so excited to find them for such a low price, and even more excited that they combine the black and antique brass finishes that I’ve been using. You can find these sconces here.

If you choose to purchase these sconces, just be aware that they’re inexpensive for a reason. 🙂 They work, and they look great (in my humble opinion) once they’re installed, but they do have a few quirks — decorative screws that don’t match so I left them off, different placement on each sconce of the switch and cord holes (neither of which I’m using), etc. But those are issues that I can work around and overlook.

So I installed one sconce on either side of the pantry doors. The sconces can be hardwired, but they also come with plug-in cords that can be wired to them. The cords weren’t long enough to reach my outlets, so I ended up having to purchase much longer cords for my lights. I used these light duty extension cords with the flat plugs, cut off the end I didn’t need, and wired it to my lights. As I mentioned above, the holes for the cord (for plug-in wiring) are in different places on each backplate on each lamp, so I didn’t bother using those. Instead, I used my drill to drill a channel into the drywall for the cord to go behind the round metal backplate and then back out to the front and down the wall.

And then I used adhesive cord channels to run the cord to the outlet. Click here to see the ones that I used.

I’ve used these cord covers several times before, and I really like that they can be painted to match the wall. I haven’t gotten around to that yet, but will hopefully be able to get these painted this afternoon.

And then came my absolute favorite part of this whole set up — the remote controlled outlet! I bought a package of five remote-controlled outlets (this is the set that I bought), and they come with two remote controls that look like this…

Each of the five outlets comes preprogrammed to correspond to the numbered on/off buttons on the remote, but you can reprogram them in about five seconds with the touch of two buttons so that one on/off button can control more than one outlet. So I programmed both sconces to turn on and off at the same time using the #1 on/off buttons. And these remotes seem to have a very long range that isn’t affected at all by furniture placement.

I seriously love these things!! Before I found these on Amazon, I actually tried another product that I found at Home Depot. They were MUCH more expensive (about $45 EACH) and worked via bluetooth and could be controlled with an app on a phone. Or that’s what they said. I bought two of them (yes, at the cost of $90) and spent 45 minutes downloading the app and then trying to get those things to connect. After much frustration and zero success, I finally packed them back up for return.

I’m so glad they didn’t work, because these remote controlled outlets are so much more convenient (just the click of a button to turn on and off, and re-programmable in seconds) than having to open an app on my phone in order to control the lights. I even added one of the outlets to the plug-in sconces in the music room. And I’ll be looking for any other lamps or other items I can use these with.

So as of this morning, the pantry door wall in the breakfast room looks like this. The white pillows are actually just pillow inserts that I had on hand. (I stocked up on the down/feather inserts that were on clearance at JoAnn Fabric last week.)

I added 40-watt-equivalent LED lights to the sconces, and they cast a soft warm light that is just enough for those corners of the room.

Now I just need to paint the cord covers, find some pretty and colorful pillows, and add artwork to the walls.