By 
The holidays are a time for family, friends, and coming together with one another. They’re also the time when you and your neighbors have an unspoken battle to see who can have the best-looking lights and decorations that year.
While decorating for winter might seem as easy as throwing lights around, there’s a lot more that goes into it than you might realize.
To help you out, we’ve prepared this guide with some different tips on how to light up your home.
Keep reading to learn about how to light up your home this winter with the best-looking decorations around town.
Keep It Simple
Have you ever driven by someone else’s home during the winter and wondered what they were thinking? More often than not, we have that thought when we drive by a home with 50,000 different lights and decorations. Don’t be that house on the block.
Remember that when it comes to decorations, regardless of the time of year, less is often more. Instead of throwing lights on every surface that you have, consider taking a more minimalist approach.
Look around the exterior of your home and yard for a few select places where you feel a certain style of light will make things pop. This could be in the pine tree in the front of your yard, along your front porch, or along with your pots.
Have a Theme
Aside from keeping things simple, you’ll also want to make sure that you have some sort of a working theme in mind as you light up your home. It’s okay to draw decorative inspiration from different sources, but you’ll want to ensure that they mesh with one another.
For example, if most of the lights on the front of your home have white bulbs, it might look strange to throw a random string of colored bulbs into the mix. Unless you plan on using them to make a statement, stick with the theme that you’ve been using.
Having a theme can also help you home in on which parts of your house and yard call for lights and decorations.
Combine Lights and Natural Elements
Regardless of the theme that you’re after, one tried and true tactic is to combine lights with natural elements, like pine and garland.
If your home has a front porch, try stringing garland around the entrance of your home, then wrapping lights around that (if the garland doesn’t have them). You can then add lights to any shrubs that you have near your entrance.
When done correctly, combining decorative lights with natural elements will create a timeless yet dramatic look that is hard to beat.
Throw It Back
There’s something to be said about vintage decorations, especially when it comes to Christmas lights. If you’re looking for something new, try turning to the past and incorporating mid-century holiday design techniques.
Large, modern-looking bulbs and simple colors like red and white can help you create a vintage light display. Hang these along the roof of your home to really throw it back.
To complete the look, you can also string lights in any bushes or shrubs in front of your home. Just make sure that they echo the look of your house!
Highlight Architectural Details
Do you have an oversized or expansive porch? If so, you’ll want to make sure that it stands out amidst the wintery tundra. Again, the best way to do that is by keeping things as simple as possible.
Try hanging lights around a few choice columns, or wrapping them around pine trees that you space out on the porch. To make things even easier for you, you can just buy fake pine trees that you can then store and reuse later.
Keeping things simple in a big and intricate space will allow any holiday visitor to really appreciate all of the architectural details present.
Look for Ways to Incorporate Your Entire Yard
If you have a solid design plan, don’t limit it to the physical structure of your house. Look for ways that you can expand it to include other areas of your yard.
For example, you can put holiday lights on either side of your driveway. Doing so will draw people’s eyes to your driveway and then up to your house, ensuring that they take everything in.
You can also create a focal point in your yard with a lighting display, or even religious characters. Just remember—you also want to keep things simple.
Use the Right Type of Lights
The last tip is more of a safety one: make sure that you use the right type of lights!
Try to light up your home with LED lights, as those are the brightest. You’ll also want to make sure that they’re designed for outside use. Read the packaging carefully before you string them up.
If you don’t use the right type of lights, you and your neighbors will have a harder time seeing them. You’ll also pay more on electricity bills, and might even create a safety hazard, depending on the weather.
Light up Your Home With These Tips
When winter rolls around, you want to make sure that your home echoes the feelings of joy and togetherness that people everywhere are feeling. By using this guide and the tips laid out, you’ll be able to light up your home, ensuring that things stay warm and cozy no matter the temperature.
Do you now have a better idea of how to light up your home for the holidays? If you do and you found this article to be helpful, remember to check out some of our other posts for more home-related guides and tips.
Comments