Bottom way.
I tried this in two ways


the wire below the lever's just there to show you it's on
the top way's the closest I could get to the way you said you were doing it, because you can't put a wire on the in-side of a panel
the bottom's the only other way I could think of doing it without normal blocks
I think you'll just have to stick with the regular way:

unless of course, my mod's just broken and you're actually supposed to be able to place wire on that side of the panels :I