Light up your home on a budget

Holiday lights: we love to look at them as we drive through darkened streets on winter nights – but man, are they a pain in the you know what to put up. It’s our second holiday season in our new home, but the first one in which we are in a financially sound place to indulge on the glow of the holiday spirit.

We figured we would take the easy route and pay to have lights installed. Two storeys worth; lights around the porch, the whole nine yards. Genius, right?

“It’s probably going to be about $800 to get them professionally installed,” my partner says, looking over my shoulder as I fill in a form for a free quote.

“Nah, I would wager $500 at most,” I retort confidently as I press send. Less than 24 hours later, I got the quote…and nearly fell out of my chair. My partner was more or less on the money; we were looking upwards of $1,000 to get holiday lights strung on our house – which unless we struck gold within the next week, was not happening.

Discouraged but not defeated, I took a step back and considered how we could get that high-end look at 10 per cent of the quote. We wanted it to not only look good, but be economical. A quick search of any home and outdoor goods retailer shows a variety of different lighting systems in different styles and colours. I’m apprehensive about getting on a ladder, so I was totally gob smacked to discover lighting projectors. These amazing devices are becoming widely popular with the simplicity of ‘setting it and forgetting it.’ So this year, we will not only be taking advantage of the lovely columns that hold up our exterior porch and wrapping it with lights, lush garland and bows, but there will be a projector on our lawn, too.

For a little under $100, we can accomplish an incredible holiday lighting scheme that’ll make even the most Grinch of types stop their car to steal a peek. Lighting up your home for the holiday’s doesn’t have to break the bank, you just need a little imagination, some patience and some holiday cheer to get it done.