It’s always a good idea to plan where you want your outdoor lighting to go – and then measure carefully! Here are the most popular spots to hang your outdoor Christmas lights, in order of difficulty, with #1 being the easiest, and # 8 being the most difficult:
- Inside window boxes and planters
- Along driveways and/or pathways
- Around focal points in your yard (like birdbaths, etc.)
- Around pillars, posts and railings
- Around windows, door frames, and other architectural features
- On top of bushes and hedges
- Around trees in your yard
- Along your roofline, at the eaves
You want to start by measuring the distance from your outdoor power source to your decorating site; make sure you add this number to any final set of calculations you arrive at. When you are outlining doors and windows, those measurements are obvious, but when you want your lighting to twine around trees, wreathes, pillars and posts, use these guides:
- For wreathes: to light a 3 foot wreath, figure about 50 lights.
- For indoor Christmas trees: figure about 100 to 200 mini lights for every vertical foot.
- For pillars, posts, and railings: a ballpark figure is 25 feet of lights for every 7 feet of column-shaped feature you are trying to light. You will need more or less depending on the circumference of the pillar, post, column, or railing.
- For bushes and/or hedges: net and blanket light sets make it very easy to cover shrubs with sparkle; kits come in various sizes from 100 to 300 lights.
- For outdoor trees: start with about 250 mini lights for an outdoor tree that’s 5’ tall, 500 mini lights for a tree that’s 10’ tall, 750 mini lights for an outdoor tree that’s 15’ tall, etc. Note: deciduous trees may take less, evergreens may take more.
