How to Install Wall Sconces Without Hard Wiring

Want to learn how to install wall sconces without all of the hard wiring and electrical work? Here is exactly how to hang wall sconces to your home without hard wiring! We will share our tips, tricks, and experience in a simple how to step by step guide so that you can have trendy wall sconces in your home.

As someone who want the look of wall sconces but did not want to hire an electrician, I was on a mission to find the best way to install plug in wall sconces on my own. I searched Youtube, Pinterest and Google for ideas and couldn’t really find anything besides battery operated wall sconces. So my husband and I decided to take matters in our own hands and we came up with a method that will easily hide the wiring and make your wall sconces look like they were installed by a pro.

In this blog post, we will show you how to install wall sconces without wiring them. Whether you are looking to learn exactly how to install plug in wall sconces or you just don’t want to put a junction box in your walls, then this post is for you!

This post is all about how to install wall sconces without wiring.

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How to install wall sconces

What you will need:

Plug in wall sconces (2)
Drill
Hole Saw
Screw gun
Pencil
Tape measure
Cable access wall plates

1. Plan where to install the wall sconces

Purchasing your wall sconce

First step, search for wall sconces that are PLUG IN only!

We wanted something that was gold, modern, and adjustable. A lot of websites claim their lights are plug in, but when reading the product description they were not, so just be careful of that. Once the lights arrived, it’s time to plan where to hang them.

Troubleshooting

The biggest issue you may run into with these plug in lights are that the cords on them are very short. Our original plan to have them on either side of the living room tv failed because the cords weren’t long enough to reach the outlet.

Before hanging the bases of the sconces in place, make sure that each wire is long enough to reach the outlet below (both vertically and horizontally). Also make sure the lights are at an equal distance apart and that they were centered to the furniture piece (in this case the desk).

2. Hiding the wire of the wall sconce

Making the holes to run your wire through

The tricky part of this installation is making a hole on top that the wire and plug will fit through so that they can be hidden inside the wall. Remember, you do not want the hole to be bigger than the light fixtures plate on top. Once the holes were done on the top of both sides, we made sure we could fish the wires through the wall.

Now that you have the top holes are secured, you need to make a hole directly below the top one so that the wire can come out of the wall and be plugged in. This part is messy there was insulation in the walls so just be careful.

It is important to measure here so that you are pretty much directly below where the wire will hang from the top. Because of the 2×4 under the sheetrock, you won’t really have room horizontally to run the wires underneath the wall so just take your time with making the holes.

3. Make the wall sconces look pretty

Now that the wires are through, you have to make the holes look pretty. You don’t want two holes just randomly in your wall with wires popping out. So we came up the idea to use cable access wall plates over the holes on the bottom. This allows the wire to be accessible in case there are any wiring issues or you want to swap out your light fixtures for new ones in the future. (See the picture below)

how to install wall sconces without hard wiring — bottom holes to outlet

This gives you more of a visual on what we meant by the planning of the wires horizontally. If you need to, you can add extension cords to the wires coming from the sconces, but in this case it worked out where they reached the outlet and we didn’t need the extension cords. We would’ve loved to have the wires hidden entirely, but because of the 2×4 under the sheetrock it really wasn’t possible.

TIP: These lights work best in places like a desk or above a bed or maybe a couch. It leaves you with a way to hide the bottom holes that the wires come out of.

Best Plug In Wall Sconces

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BEST PLUG IN WALL SONCES FROM AMAZON

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These wall sconces from Amazon are a great buy because they can be plugged in or hard wired. They have over 1000 positive reviews and are dimmable which makes them ideal for the bedroom or bathroom!

BEST BATTERY OPERATED WALL SCONCES ON AMAZON: