Enhance Your Outdoors With These Holiday Lighting Tips

One of the best ways to take part in the festive season is to dress your home for the occasion. Whether it’s trimming your home in lights, adding lawn decorations to jazz up the yard, or even amping up your landscape lighting, there are many ways to bring cheer to the exterior of your home. While there’s no manual for how much or how little lighting you should incorporate into your holiday decor, we’re here to provide a few ways to enhance your outdoors with these holiday lighting tips.

Choose Your Color Scheme

Of course, it’s your home, so you get to choose exactly what you want to display. But cohesively speaking, choosing one color scheme makes things more visually appealing. There are many options to choose from: cool white, warm white, green, red, multi-color, and the list goes on and on. This is definitely a personal preference, and you just need to make sure you purchase enough of the same kind, as warm white and cool white give off a very different vibe. So mixing the two isn’t an option. 

The majority of outdoor lights are LED now, which is a great option, as they use roughly 80 percent less energy than incandescent lighting, and they last longer. So if you’ve had your trusty lights for many years, it may be time to think of upgrading to a new, more energy-efficient option.

Choose What You Want to Highlight

Take a look at your home from the street view. Step back and really get a good look at your home’s architecture and layout. Do you have high pitches that may be hard to light? Do you have trees that you could decorate? Do you have columns or pillars? What does your entrance look like? These are all things you should consider when planning your holiday lights. 

Some of the best locations to highlight include, but aren’t limited to: 

• Roofline
• Walkways and driveway
• Tree trunks and branches
• Shrubs and bushes
• Front porch area

Take Measurements

One of the biggest blunders is not planning ahead and knowing how many lights you will need to trim your roofline or any other area. Take the time to measure what it is you’re wanting to light up, and plan accordingly. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending all that time hanging the lights only to find you’re a few strands short or the ends don’t line up and your aesthetic gets thrown off. Whether you need to take linear measurements of roof lines or area measurements of your bushes and trees, be sure to do the math. You’ll save time and a headache in the long run.

Set It and Forget It

One of the best ways to ensure the lights are always ready to go is by putting them on a timer. This allows them to come on at dusk and turn off when you feel is best, whether that’s in the middle of the night or sunrise. Life is busy this time of year so who needs the added stress of having to plug in and unplug the lights day in and out? Light timers are safe to use and allow you to create the perfect ambiance without having to worry about turning them on and off. 

Also good to note – You can connect roughly 40 strands of LED lights together, depending on their set specifications. This is great when you’re trying to have a seamless look and are limited on your outlet availability.

Don’t Store What Doesn’t Work

Once the holidays are over, if something stopped working, be sure to toss it. Don’t waste the storage space if it won’t be used. But make sure to keep your notes for next year. And if you’re feeling super brave, head out after the holidays to take advantage of the post-season sales to stock up on more lights or lawn decorations that you may want to incorporate in another 11 months. 

Enjoy the Holiday Season in Skippack and Beyond

There’s not much more magical than pulling up to a beautifully lit house on a dark snowy night. Sure the time you spend on the lights may be more than you want to, but come the holiday season you’ll be glad you did. Give the landscaping experts at Blue Tree Landscaping a call today to learn more about the services we offer and how we can help enhance the natural beauty of your property.

About Blue Tree Landscaping

Blue Tree Landscaping proudly creates custom outdoor living spaces while respecting and enhancing the natural beauty of your surroundings. We specialize in providing Montgomery County the best inground pool design and construction, as well as serve as the area’s expert in landscape design. For more than 36 years, Blue Tree Landscaping has been dedicated to providing Skippack, Collegeville and the surrounding areas with superior customer service, quality pool construction and beautiful outdoor living areas meant to be enjoyed for years to come. You can expect personalized service in all that we do and the kind of care that has been built on a reliable reputation since 1983.