Where an outdoor lighting company ends and holiday design begins

I get some version of this question fairly often, so I wanted to answer it properly: do I install outdoor Christmas lights and roofline decorations for my clients?

The honest answer is no, not really — although there can be overlap. What I do instead is design the kind of porch and entry that makes someone stop, even for a second, before they walk through the door. Understanding where that line falls, and why, turns out to matter more than people expect.

Where My Work Begins (and Where It Doesn’t)

I think about it in terms of proximity to the front porch and entryway. I might light some bushes near the door, or set a decorated tree or sleigh on the porch as part of a larger design. But past a certain distance — and a certain height off the ground — that work belongs to someone else.

The reason comes down to tools as much as anything. Lights strung high in trees or along a roofline require equipment that I simply don’t have access to, like a cherry picker. That’s a big part of why landscaping and tree-trimming companies are usually the ones doing that kind of installation, often as winter off-season work.

The Difference Beyond the Lights

I think the misunderstanding people run into is that they picture “holiday lights” as one single job. But an outdoor lighting installer is focused primarily on lights. A holiday designer incorporates lights as one element of something larger.

What I mean by that is wreaths, swags, garlands, and porch pots — each built on a greenery base, layered with designer ribbon, ornaments, and floral sprays. In a way, it’s the difference between a contractor who builds your home’s structure and an interior designer who gives it a personality. One makes it stand. The other makes it feel finished.

A Lesson from the Country Club

The clearest example of this in my own experience comes from my years with the Birmingham Country Club in Michigan. Every season, the grounds crew strung lights through the trees lining the drive up to the main entrance — a beautiful, glowing path for members as they arrived.

My work picked up at the last fifteen or twenty feet at the valet station where members stepped out of their cars, I brought in wreaths, swags, and garlands built around a design theme that carried through the foyer, the lobby, and the rest of the building. The lights got people there. My work is what greeted them.

Who to Call for Roofline and Tree Lighting

If what you’re picturing is a fully lit roofline or trees glowing along the driveway, an outdoor lighting installer is genuinely the right call — often a landscape or tree service that adds lighting installation to their winter work. In Durango, Azteca Landscape and Mighty Bright are two names that tend to come up first.

I’m always happy to work alongside whoever handles that side of things, timing the two pieces so the whole property — the distant lights and the close-up entry alike — feels like one cohesive design rather than two separate decisions.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Outdoor lighting and entry design aren’t necessarily competing services. They’re doing two different jobs that happen to work best together. Lighting is what catches your eye from the road or the end of a long driveway — it creates that festive glow from a distance. Entry design is what continues the experience once someone’s actually walking up: the mood, the warmth, the small story told in ribbon and greenery as they reach your door.

Our own home sits at the end of a long driveway, and we’re the only house on our street — so lights strung through the trees or along the roofline wouldn’t really be seen by anyone, including us, once we’re inside for the night. That’s part of why I keep our exterior simple and put all my attention into the porch instead, where Randy and I actually experience it every single time we come home. As a self-declared Christmas banana, I still love what that close-up moment does for the whole approach. Some year, if we’re hosting a big party or have special guests staying with us, I could see lighting the drive just for the occasion. But most years, the porch is where all my love goes — and there’s real pride in looking out at the home I built that feeling for.

Designing an Entrance, Not Just Decorating One

When I design an entry, I’m building around a theme that reflects the home itself — its architecture, its owners, its personality. For a business, that means thinking about brand identity: colors, how people arrive, what they should feel in that first moment. At the country club, that took the shape of an oversized nutcracker theme — two six-foot nutcrackers flanking the doorway like they were standing guard, welcoming members in for whatever the evening held, whether a family dinner or the annual Holiday Ball.

For homes, I like the exterior and interior to feel like one continuous idea, not two separate decisions. I think of it the way a chef thinks about a tasting menu — the exterior is the appetizer. It sets the tone for everything that follows.

Do You Need Both?

Not every home needs a fully designed entryway, and that’s genuinely fine. It comes down to budget and the experience you’re hoping to create. For a lot of homeowners, pretty exterior lighting and a simple wreath are plenty to make a home feel ready for the season.

For others — especially those who love to entertain, or want the exterior of their home to connect with the interior decorations — a more considered entry may be the right choice for them. In those cases, it usually isn’t lighting or design. It’s both, working together.

If a lighting company has already handled your roofline and trees but the entry still feels like it’s missing something, that’s exactly the gap I’d love to help close — even something as simple as a spotlight tucked into a wreath, or lighting a large focal piece like a sleigh, if that’s what a space calls for.

A Final Thought

Outdoor lighting gets you noticed from the road. Entry design is what makes people feel something once they’ve arrived. Both matter. They’re just not the same job — and knowing the difference is the first step to getting the whole picture right, from the driveway to the door.

To learn about the impact of porch design outside of Christmas read → Curb Appeal for Mountain Homes in Durango: The Last 5% That Changes Everything

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