A Jerry rigged light and light switch for my garage workshop

[Hickory n Steel]

My garage workshop isn't very well lit.
Half of it was turned into a room at some point and while there was a single 2 plug receptacle installed there was no hard wired lighting or switch.
All I had was an old dual bulb florescent tube light with a thrmb wheel switch on the cord, it wasn't
 that bright and it died a few years ago.
Since then I've just used a few clamp on work lights at either end  but I finally decided I needed an adequate overhead light with a switch right by the door as I walk in.

I'm not an electrician though so I came up with something simple until I decided to bite the bullet on a better more proper and permanent solution which will hopefully be hard wired with a real light switch.

This is what I came up with.
A cheap " plastic lamp holder " light socket wired to a lamp cord, plugged into an adapter with a rocker switch on the end of a 15' cord.




It's not pretty, but it was simple and it's effective.

[bmwrd0]

That wall box for the outlets need to have a strain reliever put in were the wires enter. Not a hard job at all, though you will need to turn off power to that circuit, and re-wire the outlet.

[GENEG]

If you're going to do much work in there, replace the fanfold led with 1 or 2 integral led "4 foot" linkable fixtures.  two of them will make it seem like daytime in there.  I put one of the foldables in an ex milkhouse & the radius of light at floor level was pretty small. Has to use a flashlight to find dropped screws.  Less than $20 for two fixtures from Menards lit up the whole room.  You can still use the piggyback plug switch.

Missing strain relief connectors & open junction boxes seem to be everythere.

[Hickory n Steel]

If you're going to do much work in there, replace the fanfold led with 1 or 2 integral led "4 foot" linkable fixtures.  two of them will make it seem like daytime in there.  I put one of the foldables in an ex milkhouse & the radius of light at floor level was pretty small. Has to use a flashlight to find dropped screws.  Less than $20 for two fixtures from Menards lit up the whole room.  You can still use the piggyback plug switch.

Missing strain relief connectors & open junction boxes seem to be everythere.

That's a good idea.
We don't have menards out here, but I will look into them.
This has given me a fairly adequate amount of light, but I would definitely like more.

[GENEG]

As you get older, you'll find that there is never too much light.  Both Sam's club & Costco also have the shop light type led fixtures.  I recently did some direct voltage LED bulbs in some 2 bulb basement fixtures.  The ballasts were thermo tripping & the bulbs were dim when they worked.  Ballast bypass led bulbs were much cheaper than replacing a ballast.  Also could get the color of light that worked best.  So, don't throw away those old 4' flourescent fixtures.  Remove the ballasts & replace the bulbs with direct wire.   The other thing I like about that approach is that the old shop lights have bigger reflectors & spread the light further.

[Hickory n Steel]

As you get older, you'll find that there is never too much light.  Both Sam's club & Costco also have the shop light type led fixtures.  I recently did some direct voltage LED bulbs in some 2 bulb basement fixtures.  The ballasts were thermo tripping & the bulbs were dim when they worked.  Ballast bypass led bulbs were much cheaper than replacing a ballast.  Also could get the color of light that worked best.  So, don't throw away those old 4' flourescent fixtures.  Remove the ballasts & replace the bulbs with direct wire.   The other thing I like about that approach is that the old shop lights have bigger reflectors & spread the light further.

This wasn't a shop light, but some kind of fixture my dad got for free a long time ago which didn't have reflectors or anything.
I already got rid of it.