The Highlands Christmas Light Installation — Columbia

Height is the job

The Highlands sits out on the southwest side of Columbia, past Scott Boulevard, and the housing stock is what Columbia has been building for the last few decades: two-storey fronts, prominent entry gables, mixed materials, multiple roof planes and peaks that sit a long way up. These houses look genuinely impressive lit, and genuinely awkward lit badly, because the eye goes straight to the highest point and stays there. If the peak is dark or the line sags, that is what people see.

Should we light the tall peak?

Almost always yes, and it should be the first thing budgeted rather than the thing cut. On a home with a dominant entry gable, that peak is the face of the house. A roofline that runs neatly across the lower planes and then stops short of the peak reads as unfinished from the street, and everyone can tell.

Is second-storey work safe on these rooflines?

It is the work we are set up for. Steep pitches and high fascia need proper ladder staging and the right stand-offs, not somebody reaching. That is most of why professional installation exists in this part of town — not because the lights are complicated, but because the access is, and a fall from a Highlands gable is not a minor thing.

Multiple gables — do they all need doing?

Not necessarily. On a front with three or four peaks, doing all of them can flatten the design into noise. Usually the strongest result is the main roofline run clean end to end, the dominant entry gable outlined, and the secondary peaks left alone or given something quiet. We will walk through the elevation with you and say which we think earns it.

What about the garage side?

Worth including. Big front-facing garages are a large blank area on a lot of newer builds, and a lit line above the doors plus something with height beside them — a wrapped column, a pair of lit shrubs — stops that side of the house going dark while the entry glows.