Putting up outdoor Christmas lights is certainly a time of fun and family bonding. But you must know what kind of lights you must buy, and have some basic idea of how you are going to put them up. Read few things about Christmas lights.
What's Christmastime without a bit of decorative lighting hung here and there? Decorative lights simply give a whole new enchanting look to the house. Forget giving the house a new look, it also gives the neighborhood a festive look.
Passers-by are intrigued by the interesting outdoor Christmas decorations. However, how easy is it to put up outdoor lights? What and how much do we know about outdoor lighting? Let us have a look.
Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights
Christmas lights come in several different forms, and you will really be confounded if you visited a store selling these lights. There are the basic round, colored bulbs that have been used traditionally, but then there are many fancy shapes available nowadays. So how do we take our pick? Let's have a look.
LED Lights are the most popular outdoor lights. They come in different varieties to suit individual needs. There are the outdoor connectible lights which are perfect for decorating trees and bushes in your garden. They come in different lengths and are usually 20m in length.
The best part about these lights is that they are extendable. You can attach lights even up to 80m in length to the main string of lights. Thus, they are extremely beneficial while decorating outdoor trees and bushes.
With the advances in technology and innovation, today there are all kinds of complex outdoor lighting. No longer are we confined to purchasing simple strings with bulbs.
One such type is the sculpture lights, which come in various shapes and sizes. These types of lighting arrangements are perfect for empty spaces in the front lawn. A variation of this type is the LED acrylic character sculpture lights which also look fantastic.
The LED light show trees also look fantastic on large porches or lawns. Then there's the icicle lights, which impart the snowy-white effect to the whole house.
There are several fancy outdoor lights such as clear white dripping icicle shaped-lights, which are look like icicle drippings, cascading waterfall lights, motif lights, silhouette lights, rope lights, curtain lights, etc.
This year's favorites seem to be the pearly bulbs, which are actually shaped round like pearls and given a glossy sheen on their outward surface to make them seem more so. Heart-shaped bulbs are still present, and you will also find more thematic Christmas lights such as those shaped in the form of candies, holly, mistletoe, etc!
Things to Remember while Buying Outdoor Lights
Before setting out to purchase Christmas lights, you will first have to determine which are the areas you want covered with lights.
The next step is making a rough estimate of how much length of light strings you will need. Do not be stingy, while buying these bulb strings, especially since you are going to light up the entire exterior of your house, which includes the bushes and the brambles.
Bulb strings are nonperishable, so you can stock them in your loft or attic and use them the next year too. However, you shouldn't fall short of it. So be prudent!
While purchasing lights, you get the incandescent mini lights, which have been the popular and only choice for years together. However, now we also get LED lights, which although more expensive and more economical in the long run. They do not consume as much electricity as the other kind.
Moreover, before purchasing LED lights, double check the quality, because low quality LED lights often give in to the harsh climatic conditions. How does one check the quality? Well, check and find out if the particular light is UL approved for outdoor purpose.
A critical aspect to be considered while purchasing outdoor lights is safety! There are so many cases of fires breaking out during the holiday season, simply because of negligence and carelessness. When a set of lights is meant for outdoors, never use it indoors and vice versa. Moreover, use extra low voltage devices for outdoor lighting purposes.
The safest thing to do would be to call a wire man to put the electric points outside the house. You can set up of the light strings later on, but let the wire man pull out a line from inside the house and provide the connection. This is necessary, or you might have to spend Christmastime with a hairstyle resembling that of a freshly plucked turkey.
To enhance the look, you can even add a router to the string to make these lights blink on and off. LED Christmas lights can also be put on the barks of your outdoor trees and can be lined around your flowerpots outside the house.
The best part is putting up the lights. You can have a whole family thing here, with each one contributing in their own special way. Even the kiddies can help in handing out stuff when you are perched atop the stool to put up the lights.
One of the most traditional ways is to run the light string along the edges of the house, but who says you cannot experiment. You can use the LED Christmas lights to write out small messages like 'Season's Greetings' on an outdoor wall of the house.
If you have a fence, try getting the new fashion pipe Christmas lights to work on the top portion of the fence. Pipe lights work wonders with picket fences.