Fair Oaks Christmas Light Installation

Anyone who has tried to string lights on an older house near Fair Oaks Village knows the real problem. The oaks got there first. A lot of rooflines on these streets sit under limbs that are older than the house, and plenty of people quit doing lights years ago because they couldn’t even find the eaves through all that canopy. That’s the kind of house we like working on. Our Fair Oaks Christmas light installation crews work out of a shop a few minutes west on Winding Way, so your street is close.

Bird Track is usually where our Fair Oaks season starts. Smaller cottage homes with a summer-cabin feel, one story, short roof edges, and often a single great tree out front that deserves more attention than the house gets. We’ll usually tell you to put the effort there.

Closer to Winding Way, the older ranch streets have long, low eaves and yards that have filled in over the decades. Mature landscaping looks great until you need somewhere to plant a ladder, so we ask for a few photos of the front before we quote and figure out where the ladder can stand without flattening a flower bed or leaning on a branch.

Fair Oaks Village is its own thing. Craftsman cottages, a couple of old Victorians, and chickens walking down the middle of the road like they pay taxes. Nothing in the Village is square, and we don’t pretend it is. A cottage with a deep porch might look best with lit garland along the porch beam, a wreath on the door and one clean run of lights on the front roof edge. No need to outline every angle.

Rollingwood sits out east toward Hazel, with homes that back onto ravine greenbelts. Out there, the backyard oaks are what you actually look at from the deck on a cold night, so we’ll often suggest wrapping two or three trunks out back before lighting every foot of the roof. Phoenix Field was built on the old airfield, so the trees are younger and the roofs are easier to reach. Curragh Downs and the streets around North Ridge Country Club have roomier lots and big established trees, which usually means long driveways that look really good edged with stake lights.

Valley oaks are protected around here for good reason, and even the ones that aren’t don’t need a light crew hurting them. Our rules are simple. No nails, no staples, and no wire twisted around a branch. We spiral the lights up the trunk and onto the lower limbs snug enough to stay put in a windy storm, but loose enough that you could slide your hand under the strand. Everything comes off in January, long before spring growth, so nothing is left behind to cut into bark.

We also keep weight off long, thin limbs that already hang out over a roof or driveway. If a limb looks cracked or hollow, we’ll point it out and leave it dark. Some trees wrap better than others, too. Rough oak bark holds a spiral nicely. Crape myrtles look great done branch by branch. A big sycamore is beautiful but tall, so we usually light the trunk and the first fork and let the canopy be. There’s more on our tree lighting page if you’re curious.

When half your eaves are buried in leaves, the trick is choosing which edges to light. We look at it from the street, where your neighbors will see it, and light the lines that actually show. Plastic clips hold the roofline lights on gutters and shingle edges, so nothing gets screwed into your fascia. Where a limb brushes the roof, we leave a gap in the run so the wind doesn’t rub through the cord all season.

If the roof is too hidden to carry the look, pillars and porch columns pick up the slack. A wrapped pair of columns reads from the street even when the gutter line doesn’t. Add a wreath hung high on the garage and garland on the front railing, and a house under heavy canopy still looks finished.

Power matters more than people think. A lot of older Fair Oaks houses have one outside outlet, maybe two. We plan the runs so no single outlet is overloaded, keep cords out of walkways, and put the whole display on a timer. Lights click on near sundown and quit late at night, and you never touch a switch.

After the holidays we take everything down, trees first, then the roof. You don’t store any bins, you don’t untangle anything next fall, and nothing sits on the gutters until spring. If a strand quits in the middle of December (critters do chew), call (916) 999-5158 and we’ll swap the bad section.

We’re out this way all season for jobs in Orangevale and Gold River, so adding a Fair Oaks stop is easy. We’re in Orangevale most weeks too (see our Orangevale page). Estimates are free and done over the phone. Call (916) 999-5158, tell us about the house and the trees, and we’ll talk it through. Photos of the front yard help, and our contact form takes them. Once the price works for you, a quick call back to (916) 999-5158 and we’ll pencil in a date.