Tips on Hanging Exterior Christmas/Holiday Lights from Washington, DC Contractor
Let’s face it; December is a difficult time of year. The days are extremely short, the weather has finally quit the glorious crisp coolness of fall and has settled into the ugly, cold, soggy slog of winter. You have to cram yourself back into old coats, hats, slippers, and gloves, and the worst part of it is, you know you won’t get a break from all the extra gear for months. Darkness and coldness stretches before you.
Even if you find the holidays stressful, you have to admit that driving up your street in the evening and seeing all of the beautiful creations your neighbors have made out of holiday lights sparkling on your street brings a little bit of cheer into the bleakness. Especially when it starts to get dark around 4:30 in the afternoon, as it does in December in the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia area, the extra light and beauty makes a big difference.
If you want to add to the holiday cheer with your own seasonal decorations, but don’t know where to start, take heart. We have provided a few tips from our reservoir of expertise. Blue Door Painters offers a full service holiday decoration procedure, so we can take the more complicated aspects of your projects off your hands for an affordable price – but in the mean time, consider these five tips and you are sure to have a front yard that will wow and warm the hearts of your neighbors.
One: Review your home and landscaping for its decorative potential. Every style of architecture and landscape lends itself to a unique form of decoration, and you should bring out the strengths in your exterior with your holiday decorating in the same way that you would bring out the strengths with a new paint job. That means that you should check all the surfaces of the face of your home, and determine what would look beautiful when covered with lights. Any structural lines are natural candidates for adornment: eaves, windows, porches, handrails, and gables all provide interesting planes for the eye to follow when decorated with twinkling lights. Height is an important consideration, as any holiday decorating will look more sophisticated if reaches high. Consider height both in your architecture and in your landscaping; are there any high trees that can be decorated? Are there any interesting lines in the landscaping that can be emphasized, like walkways, repeating shrubbery, small conifers, or exterior lights? If there are large expanses of lawn, you might want to consider creating a winter or nativity scene.
Two: Pick a color palette. Holiday lights look beautiful in all colors, but if you want to have the most sophisticated composition, you should pick a color combination and keep it constant. You could use all multicolor lights, all white, or pick a few solid colors or patterns and alternate where you string them so that you highlight important aspects of your architecture and landscaping. Remember that with light, “cool” colors like blue, green, and violet tend to come to the foreground, while “warm” colors, like red, orange, and yellow tend to fade to the background. You want to bring out the clean lines of your architecture and landscaping the most prominently, and then create intricate detail in the spaces in between.
Three: Plan the project out and gather the necessary equipment. Hanging holiday lights is not complicated, but it can be frustrating and tedious if you are unprepared. Here is what you will need:
– A good ladder, that reaches to the appropriate height
– A large bucket with a handle, to carry the strings of lights up high
– A tool belt equipped with hammer, long, thin nails, a coil of florist’s wire, wire cutters, duct tape, and insulated gloves.
You will also want to make sure that you have all of the lights you need before you start the project, and that you have a clear plan for your composition. That will eliminate the frustration of getting halfway through the project and then having to go back out to the store.
Four: Hang the lights. Figure out where you will be plugging the string of lights in, and make sure that your outlet has the capability to run power through your entire string. Start at that side, with the lights not yet plugged in, and move methodically through your composition. Put up nails on smooth surfaces where you can’t find anywhere to hook them, and use the florists wire to secure them. Do not reach too far to either side of the ladder, because it isn’t safe; go down to the bottom and move the ladder over to get those hard-to-reach areas.
After you are done decorating the face of your house, move out into the lawn, keeping track of how all the lights will ultimately connect to the power source. Once you are all finished, you get to do the fun part: pull the ladder away, clean up any debris, and plug your lights in! Voila! Holiday cheer for the whole neighborhood.