Posted on 12/21/2005 9:55:27 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
(NOTE: Complete set of pictures are at referenced site above)
I've "finished" my lights for this year, I put a couple at my blog but I couldn't get picture links to work from there so I've put them up on my "maj.com" picture site (which I only have because I use "brickshelf.com" to host a few lego pictures.....).
In this picture, you see the house as it looks as you approach it on the road. I've moved the flag to the roof, to get it out of the way of a new tree but also it is much more prominent. As you approach, it seems to move from the wall to "floating", as you will see in the next picture. I've put up lots of hooks, and build structures using cpvc water pipes, sometime gluing and sometimes using screws. This lets me take things apart and store them as long thin pipes.:
Here's the view you see as you pull up. If you look on the left, you can see a tree from my back yard, it's 2000 lights staked to the ground and hoisted up into a tree. I've got about 5000 lights in the back yard that are barely visible from the front, but we can see them from windows).
I use 8 timers on 6 circuits for this light display (2 circuits are 20-amp circuits, and most timers only do 15 so I have 2 timers on each of them). I also have 2 light sensors to control the lights attached to the house, which come on first and turn off last. There are about 4100 lights physically attached to the house. I put a few red lights in the green light sets around the windows/porch/garage to make it look like holly.
This is a view from another angle. I didn't used to like metal sculptures, but a few years back I decided deer were "natural" enough. I'll never have santa or his sled, but if I ever catch a break on a 50 percent off sale, I might add a polar bear or a snowman (we don't usually get enough snow for a real snowman, although if you look carefully you will see the remains of a snow fort we built (a big mound of snow which the kids dig holes in).
In this view you can also see another tree in the back yard, it's all the way on the right. We call this the "bear tree", because from our kitchen window it looks like a bear, swaying in the breeze like it is lumbering up the yard. It is a simple 14-foot pine tree, and I put about 2000 lights in it this year.
I have several artificial trees I've picked up after christmas, I set them up outside and put lights on them. Here are two surrounding my front door, which has a wreath that a kind neighbor gave me one year in appreciation for my lights (I don't advertise my lights, so we get little traffic, but most of the people in the neighborhood know about them and come by).
I sadly had my front-yard tree die this year, I left a little of it, painted it white, and covered it in about 1300 blue lights:
This is what it looked like the previous year, when it had about 3000 lights in it:
I didn't like how white the deer looked, so after christmas last year my daughter and I picked several colors and test-sprayed the deer until we found a color we liked. We ended up with a couple of different colors. I painted everything, including the lights, because the clear lights washed out the rest of the display. Here's a family of deer hiding under a holly tree (The holly tree is actually in my neighbor's yard, but they kindly let me put lights in the tree. I use clear lights to accentuate the green shiny leaves and red berries, this is the only place I like to use clear lights which are otherwise, as I said, too bright)).
My newest addition is my new fake blue tree. Since I had a lot of extra blue lights because of the dead tree, I needed a place to put them. A storm had blown over my roof-mounted TV antenna, and the mounting pole was sitting on the side of my house waiting to be discarded. It was about 10 feet tall, with legs, so I added a few feet with another tube, painted the whole thing copper, and built a tree around it, containing about 2200 lights, mostly blue with a few hundred purple lights:
Last year the most dissapointing tree to me was my big red "fire" tree (look at the picture in a previous post, you see it on the right, the tree is 40 feet tall and I had lights draped down it). The problem was first that I didn't like the draped lights, and 2nd that every big wind blew the lights around in the tree so they would end up bunched and I'd have to get out the pole and fix them (I use a long pole made of a stick and a 16-foot telespoping pool-cleaner pole). Anyway, this year I decided to go horizontal instead of vertical, and I also decided to accent the red with some green. The tree isn't very full, so I'm not entirely happy with the effort, but next year if I can figure out a way to work around the tree (it's almost 50 feet from the right side since there's a steep hill) I'll do this again, I like it much better than last year. There are about 3750 lights in this tree, it probably needs about 1000 more.
The first couple of years, I was annoyed by the light pole in the middle of my display. Then I decided I'd make it into something. I got a flexible dryer vent, bent it into a candy-cane top shape, and filled it with spray-foam insulation. I attach it to the top, and wrap the entire thing with about 600 multi-colored lights (these were too bright, so I removed all the "orange" lights and replaced them with darker red/green/blue lights). And in case you are wondering, I moved the camera when taking this picture, not on purpose.
I hope you have enjoyed my lights. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
This beats the flashing Rudolph noses you guys wear.
You're a riot...
Very nice.
You're muh hero.
You can see the blue tree before it died, the red tree with the vertical lights, and the flag at it's old position.
I also replaced all the icicles this year with solid blue, I had some multi and some white/blue blinking last year.
THanks to everybody who responded, I appreciate the kind comments.
I've got some close-ups of the bear tree, but not up on the web yet, I'll try to get to that tonight.
I've got a plan for some more pictures, if the kid's snow fort would just melt, it's blocking the view.... :->
Looks awesome! My only criticism is you should have a manger scene somewhere.
Last year a 2-month period around christmas was about the same as my summer air conditioning bill. It isn't terribly bad, but it's not cheap.
A couple of years ago, I replaced every one of my lights with "energy-saving" versions. The old lights used between .34 and .4 amps per 100 lights. The new ones use .2 amps per 100 lights.
I did that MOSTLY because I was running out of power on the existing circuits, before I ran the two new 20-amp circuits to the porch. But I also like to be energy-conscious.
There are new "LED" lights that use 5 times less power, or about .04 amps per 100 lights. They are unfortunately very expensive, although they were also pretty popular this year, having sold out the good colors at lowes (about 10-11 bucks per string of 60-70, vs. the $1.88 per 100 I pay retail for the strings at Target (I often pick up sets at 1/2 or 1/4 price).
This year Target messed up, and most of their colored lights were NOT energy-saving, even though the boxes said they were. That kept me from replacing my blue lights, which are getting quite "white" as the paint chips off. Blue is the worst for this, I'm not sure why. It's why I'd like to at least replace my blue strings with the "LED" lights, which are blue by nature, and don't lose their color.
I do most of the work myself. I'm hard to work with, so my wife usually stays away. She did help for a few hours with the huge tree, since I needed someone on the ground in case I fell off the roof. No, seriously I needed her on the ground to help pull the lights around the branches on the far side of the tree, it was hard for her to put up with me for that time.
My daughter has really chipped in on the "design" end, and helped with painting the blue tree white for example. My son also helps sometimes running around getting new light strings for me. But pretty much it's just me.
This year took a long time partly because I had to build 2 new pvc structures (for the new blue tree, and the frame for the flag on the roof). I also added eye-hooks to the sloped edge of my roof to hang the icicle lights, last year I clipped gutter clips to the edge of the shingles but this will make things go much quicker next year. I also added hooks around the 2nd floor windows.
I started November 6th, because the weather was nice and I needed a break from the political campaign here in Virginia.
I don't keep track, but if I had to guess I'd say I spent about 100 hours altogether. I just finished up last sunday, which is very late -- but we had a lot of bad weather, a lot of cold weather, and I had a lot of things scheduled on the weekends which made it hard.
With the hooks, I can do the entire "house-attached" lights in a single 4-hour period. It helps to store the lights well, I pack each individual string, mostly back the way they come (which I can't describe, maybe I should take a picture). This is a little more work putting them away, but it means they don't take up a lot of space, and when I get a set of 100 out, I can simply hold one end, and "throw" the string, and it "accordians" out. And for the bushes, I just "barely" accordian out the lights, and it gives more "volume" to the bush and sticks better.
I also replace all burned-out lights when packing up, and again when getting them out.
I bet my wife would tell me it was a lot more than 100 hours. I really enjoy the work, so the time flies.
Yes, I do, but 2 of them are just babies.
I actually have a "rudolf", with a red nose, but it is very subdued (I just put 4 red lights in place of the white ones, and made sure not to paint them). He's right in front, and you can tell when you drive up if you look. It was my daughter's idea. She is pretty artistic.
THanks for the compliment.
Nice poem.
My homeowner's association has rules about how long the lights can be up. Although, it was politically correct and used the word "holiday", so there's probably a loophole there "No, these are not CHRISTMAS lights, they are St Patrick's Day Lights, so I'll take them down 90 days after March 17, except then they will be Memorial Day Lights".
I've never left any lights out. They aren't attached to the bushes well (mostly just gently laid on top), kids tend to start messing with them (one year I had several strands cut), and they don't really look nice in the day (you can see all the wires the way I lay them out).
I am tempted to leave some in the inside of the big tree because they were hard to do. But lights don't last long when left out to the elements, and next year I'd probably have to crawl up inside the tree anyway to replace burned-out bulbs.
So instead I try to simplify the setup so it takes less time the next year.
You should think about getting into the business. I know there are a couple of landscape companies in the area which put up lights for people. One does the whole job, another which will put up YOUR lights for you, but won't supply the lights.
If I had to hire someone to do this, I would skip it, but a lot of people like the lights but not the work, and if you have the expertise and the equipment it's a pretty easy task.
I've thought about it, as well as a star, and a cross. I'm torn because I'd like to get the focus on Jesus, but I also don't use statues and stuff. And I was worried that it would look like an afterthought, and the colored lights would detract from the manger.
I've seen some really nice mangers though, and if I could do it tastefully (meaning not those plastic lighted figurines) I would like to try.
I even know where it would go, not directly in my yard (where it would look like it was competing with the garish light display) but rather over with the clear-light holly tree where those 4 deer are standing. A much more "solemn" setting. Maybe next year -- I'm running out of room for new lights anyway....
Reguardless it does look fantastic. I can't even imagine the work it took putting all those lights up especially in the trees.
Mine's on the roof of the garage this year looking down on everyone's sisters.
Merry Christmas, from another guy that loves putting up the lights.
IDEA FOR STORING CHRISTMAS LIGHT STRINGS
I wrap my light strings around large ABS
plumbing pipe then duct tape the ends.
Stores easily in the rafters and provides a
handy way to change bulbs when necessary.
Beautiful light display, CharlesWayneCT.
Thanks for the ping, GJP. :-)
Merry Christmas!
Much better, and more subdued, than what you'd typically find in Dyker.
Not that my neighbors' Christmas decorations are anything to sniff at.
:-)
Great job!
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
Wow! Just gorgeous! I don't blame you a bit for wanting to show it off!
Merry Christmas!
What a wonderful job you've done, Charles! Fantastic!
I really like that candy cane. ;-)
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