When December snowflakes fall, I get overwhelmed by the notion that I should electrify the homestead for the holidays.
Usually, I simply remain stretched out in my Barcalounger, and this feeling passes. Then I promise myself that next year, sure as there are idiotic snow drivers and rising utility rates, I am going to put up tasteful outdoor decorations.
Recently, I pried myself out of the Barcalounger long enough to huddle with some outdoor lighting professionals to find out how they set the world aglow. I drove out to northern Baltimore County and sat down with Robert and Marion Mullan, proprietors of Mullan Landscape Nursery Co. Inc., whose crews decorate about 100 homes in the Baltimore area every holiday season. Then, on a frigid Tuesday morning, I watched Bob Fritsche, Gert Pretorius and Ryan Massey-Hicks of the Mullan company climb ladders, walk on steep roofs and secure extension cords as they readied a home for seasonal illumination.
Returning to my easy chair, I read Holiday Hero, a do-it-yourself outdoor- decorating guide published by Chronicle Books and written by Brad Finkle. Later, I had a long telephone conversation with Finkle, who runs a lighting business, Creative Decorating, and operates a Web site, creativedecorating inc.com, in Omaha, Neb.
I noticed right away that the lighting pros are different than me. For starters, they are not afraid of heights. The Mullan crews clamber around on roofs and once scaled an 80-foot pine tree in Ruxton to place a glowing star atop it.
The pros also don't mind working in the cold, and they are extremely organized. Their holiday decorations are, I surmised, light years ahead of anything I might pull off in a weekend. Yet there are certain practices that these pros follow that even dim bulbs like me could benefit from emulating.
One is drawing up a decoration plan. "Making a sketch is the single most important step you can take in designing your display," Finkle says. The sketch can be crude, a simple drawing on an 8-by-10 piece of paper. But it should include the basic architectural features of your house, the plantings in the yard, a rough measurement of dimensions and - this is really important - the location of electrical outlets. Stash this plan in a plastic cover, Finkle said, to avoid getting it wet and making it impossible to read.
Second, decide on a focal point. "Let one thing shine, and everything else shine around it," said Finkle. Often this focal point is the front door, said Marion Mullan, who as a landscape architect, has, I suspect, a better eye at spotting focal points than most of us. She also recommended keeping the color scheme of the lights simple and symmetrical.
Finkle agreed, saying clear lights were very popular for years, but now traditional lights - red, green and blue - are making a comeback.
Next is the general goal of avoiding male-female trouble. This does not refer to the tension between genders that has been known to manifest itself during the annual, often-spirited discussion of how to decorate the family Christmas tree. Instead, this male-female issue deals with positioning the male, or pronged end of a string of outdoor lights near a source of electrical power. (The female is the slotted end.)
This also carries over to the business of hiding the extension cords. "People want to see lights; they don't want to see extension cords," said Fritsche. Tucking an extension cord behind a downspout is a good way to discreetly supply power to roof lights, he said.
Heavy-duty outdoor extension cords now come in a variety of colors other than the common but hideous bright orange, said Finkle. When Finkle puts lights on an outdoor tree, he wraps the trunk in a hard-to-see brown cord.
Once they have successfully camouflaged cords, the pros record the cords' location, and their male-female orientation on their plan. The sketch that Fritsche and his crew used the other morning was color-coded. That means the crew knew that the light string with blue paint dabbed on it matched a blue line drawn on the sketch.
There some things I learned that fell under the label of tricks of the trade.
One was that you always test the light strings before you put them up.
Another was that you do not have to climb a ladder to place lights on an outdoor tree. Instead, you can use an expandable extension pole fitted with a light-hanging device on its end to gently position lights in trees. Poles don't work, Finkle said, when putting lights on a roofline. For that you have to climb. But the pros do have plastic light-holding clips (some sold in bulk at holiday specialty shops and on Finkle's Web site) that either tuck under shingles or attach to gutters.
For the technologically advanced, there is a software program that enables you put a digital picture of your house on your home computer, then, with a few clicks, experiment with various "looks" for your holiday lights.
And Finkle said that rather than blasting Christmas music from speakers in the yard, homeowners can now buy a transmitter that enables them to broadcast holiday music into the cars of passing holiday-light admirers. The passengers in the cars hear the music when they tune their FM radios to a setting that the homeowner has noted on a sign in his yard.
The transmitter is sold, among other places, on the radio-vendors section of the Web site planetchristmas.com, I confess that even after talking with the pros, my outdoor lighting plans are minimal. I tried to replace the incandescent string of the big C9 bulbs that I hang around the back door, the focal point of our back yard, with new, energy-saving LEDS. But by the time I got to the hardware store, strings of C9 LEDS were sold out.
One reported drawback of LED outdoor lights is that because they don't get as hot as incandescent lights, they have trouble melting any snow that falls on them.
I might test that theory next year, when, sure as people make New Year's resolutions, I am going to buy my LEDs early, then do something really big.
rob.kasper@baltsun.com
Getting started
1. Sketch a decoration plan of your house, including the all-important locations of electrical outlets. Professionals such as Bob Fritsche of Mullan Landscape Nursery Co. Inc. put lights up working from color-coded diagrams. Your plan can be simpler, but stash it, as the pros do, in a weatherproof plastic sleeve.
2. Find a focal point of your decorating scheme. For many houses, it is the front door.
3. Hide those extension cords. The outdoor cords now come in dark colors. Nothing says amateur like bright orange cords dangling from the porch.
4. Employ a few tricks of the trade, such as using shingle clips to secure roof lights, or if you are a "ground guy" who doesn't like to climb, use an extension pole, fitted with a light hanging device, to put lights on trees and tall shrubs.
The cost of lighting up
The joy of holiday illumination isn't necessarily cheap.
Holiday Hero author Brad Finkle estimates that a homeowner could easily spend $100 to $500 for materials. He notes that there are three grades of miniature incandescent lights commonly sold in the United States. The low-end lights cost about $2 for a 100-bulb set, the medium cost $4 to $7 a 100-bulb set, and the high cost about $12 to $18 a 100-bulb set.
A new type of lights is also on the scene -- the light-emitting diode, or LED. These lights cost about twice as much as a string of the most expensive incandescent lights, but they draw less electricity and are therefore cheaper to operate.
A cost comparison provided by Robert and Marion Mullan showed that burning a string of 250 incandescent C9 bulbs for 60 days would cost $70.56, while the same number of LED C9s would cost only $10.08. Similarly, 15 sets of 50-foot-long mini lights would cost $14.52 to operate for 60 days if the bulbs were incandescent, but only $1.45 if they were LEDS.
Still, during holidays, there is tendency to turn on lights and worry about the bill later. "It is the holiday season," Finkle ruefully said. "Time to fatten the bonus check of the utility company's president by hanging as many lights as possible on your home."
Rob Kasper
Take-down tips
Wrap light strings in a ball with male plug finishing on top of ball so you can test the string next year without unraveling it.
Don't store wet lights; the moisture will rust the connections. Let lights dry them off indoors for a day or two if necessary.
Mark ends of each light string with tape or a dab of paint and record its position on the decoration diagram. This makes next year's installation easier.
Store in thick, well-labeled cardboard boxes placed in a dry area. Mark and store extension cords as well.
[From "Holiday Hero" by Brad Finkle]