Del Dayo Christmas Light Installation

A Del Dayo house is usually long and low. Most homes in this pocket by the river are 1970s ranches on wide lots, plenty of them with a circular driveway out front and big oaks shading the street. That shape decides how we plan a Del Dayo Christmas light installation. You get one long single-story eave that reads clean from the street, and trees that deserve more care than the gutters do. Call (916) 999-5158 and say which you have more of.

People ask us about the Wilhaggin Del Dayo Neighborhood Association. It isn’t an HOA. It’s a voluntary group that pays for off-duty Sheriff patrols, and it has no CC&Rs and no say over decorations. This part of Carmichael is unincorporated Sacramento County, and we haven’t found any county rule that fixes a hanging date or a takedown date for a house. Nobody is handing you a start date, so a Del Dayo Christmas light installation goes up when you like. Our only advice is to be easy on the neighbors late at night, and a timer handles that without you thinking about it.

We quote by phone. Call (916) 999-5158 to tell us about the place, or get us some pictures of the front and of the trees you care about, and we’ll price it from those. We bring the lights, so there are no bins to dig out of the garage.

When a section goes dark partway through December, (916) 999-5158 is who to ring, and fixing it becomes our errand, not yours.

We’re based in Carmichael, so Del Dayo is close to home for us, same as Riverwood up on Oak Avenue and the big lots of Carmichael Creek. Our home page covers Carmichael as a whole. If you’d rather write than talk, the contact page is there.

Roofline lights on a wide ranch are mostly about keeping a straight line straight. A single-story front can run a long way without a break, and every sag shows. Our clips grab the front edge of the gutter, or the shingles where there’s no gutter. No nails or staples go into your fascia. We also carry the line around the corners so it doesn’t stop dead where the street view ends. Low roofs like these are friendly to work on, which means the January takedown goes quickly and nothing gets scuffed on the way down.

A long low house can look like one bright stripe if the roof is all you light. So we like to give the front a center. Pillar wraps on the entry posts, if your house has them, a wreath hung on the door or beside the garage, and lit garland across the entry header do that job.

Del Dayo streets are slow and oak-shaded, and the canopy often hangs right over the front of the roof. Some houses have half their roofline hidden from the street even after the leaves thin out. When your photos show that, we’ll say so. There’s no sense lighting an eave nobody can see. That effort is better spent on the trunk and lower limbs of the tree doing the hiding.

Tree wraps go on with nothing that bites into bark. No nails, no screws, no wire cinched tight. We spiral the strands snug enough to ride out a windy night and loose enough that the tree doesn’t notice them. Weight stays off thin limbs and off anything that looks dead, because big oaks drop branches without warning and we won’t hang a strand on a limb we don’t trust. More on that on our tree lighting page.

A circular driveway is made for stake lighting. Low stakes along the inside curve trace the arc after dark and pull the eye toward the door. We set them back from the concrete so tires don’t find them, and well away from any sprinkler head.

A few other things we ask about here:

• Houses on the walk to Del Dayo Elementary School get seen on foot, at kid height. Walkway stakes and the wreath matter more there than the ridge does.
• Lots on the low side, near the American River Parkway, back up to dark open space. A little light on a patio cover goes a long way back there, so we keep it modest.
• In both Del Dayo Estates and Del Dayo Riviera the frontages are wide enough that one outlet rarely covers everything. Mention which walls have an outdoor outlet when you call (916) 999-5158 and we can route cords along beds and edges instead of across the lawn.

Is the Wilhaggin Del Dayo group an HOA that sets light dates?

No. The neighborhood association people mention is a voluntary patrol fund, not an HOA. It has no CC&Rs and nothing to say about decorations, so timing is up to you.

My oak covers most of the front roof. Is roofline lighting still worth doing?

Sometimes not, and we’ll tell you from your photos. If the canopy hides the eave from the street, wrapping the trunk and lower limbs and lighting the entry usually shows better than a roofline nobody can see.

Will wrapping lights hurt my oak?

Not the way we do it. Nothing is nailed, screwed or stapled into the tree, strands are wound loosely enough that bark isn’t pinched, and it all comes off in January before spring growth starts.

Can you light a circular driveway?

Yes. Stake lights along the inside curve are the usual answer, set back from the concrete and away from sprinkler heads, on the same timer as the house.