Downtown Columbia Christmas Light Installation

Lighting a business, not a house

Downtown Columbia — The District — is brick, glass and awning: nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial fronts with flat parapets, transom windows, painted signage and upper floors that are sometimes offices and sometimes apartments. It is a walking district with real foot traffic in December, which makes a lit facade one of the cheapest pieces of advertising a small business can buy. It also means the work has to be done without shutting you down.

Will you have to close us for the day?

No. We schedule downtown work early, late, or on your slow day, and we work off the outside of the building wherever possible. If we do need interior access for a power run, it is usually minutes, not hours, and we book it with you rather than turning up.

What actually works on a storefront?

A clean line along the top of the facade or the parapet, the awning edge picked out, and something with depth in the window — lit garland, a wrapped column, a warm glow behind the glass. Resist the urge to light everything at once. On a narrow front, one strong horizontal line and one detail beats four competing ideas.

We are in a historic building. Does that limit things?

It limits how we fix, not what you can have. On older masonry and painted wood we avoid anything that leaves a hole, and lean on clips, existing hardware and tension runs instead. If your building has a landlord or a management company, we are happy to talk to them directly about what we would attach and where.

Do you handle the whole block?

We can. If several neighbouring businesses go in together the pricing gets better for everyone and the result is far stronger — a continuous lit run down a block reads as a district rather than as one shop trying hard. Get your neighbours on the phone and call us once.