Last year we took the plunge to have permanent holiday lighting installed. Click HERE to see the our NEW YEARS LIGHT display! First off, we freaking love it. Second, here’s why we did it: We’ve lived in our home for 5 years now and have spent $500-700 each year to have Christmas lights installed, replace lights, and then pay the significantly higher electric bill. We loooove having our house decorated, but that expense gets old in a hurry. Our house also didn’t have any built-in exterior lighting. Like none. Ok, one awkward lamp on the far end of the garage, but that’s it. So, we decided to take the plunge and add permanent lighting to our home!

We loved it for Christmas and New Years, and now have beautiful year-round accent lighting every night. The track that holds the lights is color matched to our trim, so it blends in during the day. The lights are controlled by a simple and user-friendly app on our phones and have customizable timers so you don’t have to turn it on and off. Every single holiday has tons of fun patterns and animations. And then Aaron had fun customizing the normal accent lights that come on every night at sunset.

Here are Q&A’s we’ve gotten from neighbors, friends, and some of you!

1. How much does it cost? It all depends on the linear feet of your roof-line. Ball-park is $21-$26/ft or $2000-5000 for the front of the house depending on the size, which includes everything from installation to lights, etc. You can request a FREE quote HERE. It was an easy and effortless experience for us!
2. Who did ya’ll use to install? We chose Astoria Lighting Co who use Gemstone lights. Astoria has great reviews and customer service. We love the 3 year full warranty that completely covers the system and any issues that could come up. Plus they use Gemstone, which are the best lights! They have locations in Texas, Utah, and Edmonton (Canada) currently, and are expanding every year.  They are the largest provider of Gemstone Lights in the Country!
3. Best time to install? Most people are thinking about this in the months leading up to the holidays. So if you know you want to do it, the off-season months will save you money on installation costs, and you can enjoy the exterior accent lighting now. We also loved putting up fun colors for Valentines and will do the same for 4th of July, Halloween, and other holidays throughout the year!
4. Why did you choose Gemstone vs. other popular brands? Simply put.. They look better! Gemstone has 150+ colors for the track vs. around 20 with the competition, so they’ll better match your home. They are also the only ones that have a specific warm white setting, so they look better for accent lights. Overall Quality of the product: They last much longer than the competition (twice as long depending one who your comparing to) and have safety and quality certifications that the others do not have. Gemstones lights can be 3 times brighter and the way the lights are positioned in the track you can clearly see the shine of the lights but also the beautiful downlighting that washes the walls.   Gemstone warranty is significantly longer.
5. Did your electric bill change? No! The lights use such little electricity, you won’t see it on your usage.
6. How do you create the holiday light and accent patterns? On the app there are literally dozens of patterns for every holiday. Some are just different light color patterns and some have animations built in. Check out my New Years Reel for our New Years animation! You can customize literally everything. So if you want to create your own holiday fun, you have total control. The accent lights are the same. We chose a warm light and were able to individually select the sections on our home that we wanted to light up each night. We set it to automatically turn on at sunset and off around midnight.
7. How visible are the lights during the day? The tracks are perfectly color-matched, so it looks built in to the trim. The individual bulbs are small and aren’t distracting during the day. I was nervous about this because we have loved renovating our exterior with shutters, paint, and German Smear, but after it was installed, I’ve never noticed it during the day.
8. Can you take the lights with you if you move? Very unlikely. The installers customize the entire light track to match your home and roofline perfectly. But it DOES add value to your home!
9. How long does it last? The lights are rated for 50,000 hours, so you should expect 15-25 years. Astoria gives a 3 year full warranty, and 5 year parts warranty through Gemstone.

I spent a few minutes reading THIS FAQ PAGE on Astoria LIghting’s website– super helpful!

Have any questions? Feel free to comment below and I’ll get back to you!