How to Install Christmas Lights

Decorating your house or business with Christmas lights is an efficient way to add allure and a healthy heaping of Christmas cheer to the community, but it requires effort for installation. Christmas only comes around once a year, so make sure to make the best of it.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Christmas Lights
• Extension Cords
• Nails
• Staples
• Screws
• Hooks
• Electrical Tape
• Lighting Clips
• Ladders

1. The type of Christmas lights and decorations you choose to put up on your house should complement your house and add elegance and warmth to its appearance; if you put up too many or too few, you may inadvertently achieve the opposite effect. Determine what would look best on your house by examining its architectural design, especially the building's facade. Keep in mind what you want to decorate (e.g., fences, roof lines, balconies, columns, the entrance walkway, etc.) and gather supplies to decorate these aspects of the building.

2. Check your lights for damaged lighting cords, as using lights in this condition will put you at risk of fire. If one of your light strands has damaged cords, do not attempt to repair them; instead, dispose of them and use another light strand.

3. To install your Christmas lights, hold the Christmas lights to the surface on which you want to install them, and secure the strands by use of nails, staples, screws and hooks (although beware that these may damage walls and rust), electrical tape, and/or lighting clips every meter or so.

4. Some areas of your house may be hard to reach because of their height. In these cases, use a ladder to reach them and fasten the light strands in the aforementioned procedure. Minimize the amount of trips you make up and down the ladder, but once you cannot reach the next point, get down and move the ladder. Fasten a hook to your ladder so you can hang a bag with supplies off its side.

5. You will most likely need an extension cord to reach a power outlet inside your house. Run an extension cord through a window in your house. Fasten the extension cord to the building the same way you did the lights so it does not interfere with your path when you are walking outside your house. If you do have an electrical outlet on the outside of your house, plug it in there, but ensure that the extension cord is out of the way and that the outlet is protected from the elements.

6. Once you have finished, turn on the lights and go to the front of your house for a full frontal view. Ensure that the lights are all working properly and uniformly.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid decorating your bushes with Christmas lights; the goal in mind is to showcase the house, not the bushes. Use lights that achieve a general uniformity both in design and color. Some variation in design is beneficial, but too much will make the decoration look tacky. For color, there should be little variation between color types.
• Too many lights can run up your electricity bill.

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