How We Design Your Christmas Lights From a Photo

Send us your address and a few photos from the street, and we design your Christmas lights online. We study the photos alongside satellite and street views, work out which rooflines, trees and details will carry from the curb, and then draw the scheme directly onto a photo of your own home. You approve a picture of your house lit for Christmas, not a paragraph describing it. Nobody has to visit, and nobody has to be home.

It is a lovely part of the season, because it is the first time you see your home the way it will look in December.

What do you need to send?

Your address and a handful of photos. That is genuinely enough to begin.

The photos that help most are the ones that show the house the way a neighbor sees it. One straight on from the street. One from each side of the approach, so we can see the depth of the roof and the shape of the gables. One from the end of the driveway if the home sits back. Daylight is ideal, because it shows the architecture clearly.

Then add anything you love. A close-up of the columns by the door. The arched window over the entry. The oak you have always thought would look beautiful wrapped. A line telling us how you want the house to feel helps too: classic and elegant, joyful and full of color, or simply the house the grandchildren talk about all year.

What happens to the photos once we have them?

They become a plan.

We look at your photos alongside satellite and street views of the property. The satellite view shows the shape of the roof from above: where the ridges run, how the wings meet, which parts face the street. The street view shows what a passer-by actually sees, which is not always what you see from the front door. Between the three, we can tell which lines describe your home from the curb and which would disappear.

That is where the design decisions get made. Outline every edge of a roof and it can look traced and busy. Outline the lines that describe the shape and it looks deliberate. On a Tudor like the one in the photo above, that means following the steep gables and the eaves, picking up the arched doorway, and letting a single lit wreath mark the center of the house. Topiaries by the door, a lighted walkway and hand-wrapped trunks out front can all be added to the same plan.

How is the design drawn on your house?

Directly onto a photo of your home.

We take one of your street photos and draw the scheme on it: the rooflines in the color you chose, the wreath where it would hang, the trees you want wrapped, the path lit to the door. What comes back is a picture you can look at, show your family, and say yes or no to.

Trees are drawn the way you want them, because tree lighting is fully custom: hand-wrapped trunks only, or trunks and the main branches, to the height your design calls for. If a canopy is worth considering, we show it separately, since canopy lighting is a significantly larger investment than a trunk wrap.

What if you want to change something?

Then we change it. This is the easiest moment in the whole season to change your mind.

Maybe the back roofline does not need to be lit after all. Maybe you would like to see warm white and multicolor side by side. Maybe the drawing makes you realize the two crepe myrtles by the walk would finish the picture. Tell us, and we redraw it. Seeing it on your own home makes these decisions easier, because you are reacting to your house, not imagining it.

The choices are as wide as you need: warm white, cool white, multicolor, candy cane in red and cool white, or candy cane in red and warm white, and several more colors and custom combinations are available on request.

When is a site visit worth it?

For larger estate, HOA and commercial properties, an on-site walkthrough is available on request. Long drives, gated entrances, several buildings or a community monument can benefit from walking the property in person.

For most homes, the photos tell us what we need, which is why the consultation is online by default. There is no appointment to plan your week around.

What happens after you approve the drawing?

Your design becomes your installation plan. A 50% deposit reserves your installation date. Before the crew arrives, the lights for your home are custom-fit to the design you approved. All we need from you on install day is working exterior outlets on the outside of the home.

Next year, the design is already on file. You can change your color scheme every year at no charge, as long as the design itself — what is lit and where — stays the same.

Request a design consultation with your address and a few photos, and we will reply within one business day to start your design. To see where the drawings lead, browse our projects.