Holiday Lighting for Historic Homes

People buy older houses for the trim. Crown molding under the eaves, turned porch posts, sawn brackets under a gable, an iron railing up the front steps. None of that comes from a big box store, and most of it cannot be replaced with a matching part. Holiday lights are temporary. The damage from hanging them badly is not.

Getting historic home Christmas lights right comes down to protecting that detail while still lighting the house well. That applies to the older bungalows in Sylvan Park and 12 South, the older homes in Belle Meade, the Victorian houses near downtown Franklin, and any house where the woodwork is older than the people living in it.

Where the damage actually happens

Almost all lighting damage on an old house comes from two moments: putting something into the wood, and pulling it back out in January. The lights themselves do very little harm. The fastening does.

Fascia, eaves and crown molding

Old fascia and molding usually carry decades of paint. A staple or small nail punches through that paint film and gives water a way into the wood. Middle Tennessee winters are wet and swing above and below freezing, so a hole that takes on water in December can start a paint failure by spring.

There is a second problem. On a house built before 1978, assume the older paint layers may contain lead. Prying out fasteners, scraping off tape residue and sanding over holes all disturb that paint. It is easier to never make the hole.

Brackets, corbels and gingerbread

Decorative brackets look like good anchor points. They were not built to hold anything. Many are attached with old nails or dried out glue, and a strand pulled tight in the wind can work them loose. Wrapping them also hides the shape that makes them worth having. If a bracket is the best part of the gable, light the line above it and let the bracket sit in that light.

Porch railings, posts and balusters

Turned balusters and old railings are where people reach for tape, adhesive hooks and zip ties pulled tight. Adhesive hooks lift old paint when they come off. Tape leaves residue that has to be scraped. Tight ties cut a groove into soft old wood. Whatever you use has to come off clean.

Slate and steep roofs

Slate cracks when you walk on it and cracks when you pry under it. A clip made to slide under an asphalt shingle tab is the wrong tool for a slate roof. On slate or a steep pitch, leave the roof surface alone and work from the edge.

Built in gutters

Many older houses have box gutters built into the cornice instead of a gutter hanging off the eave. That means there is no hanging gutter lip to clip to, so the clip has to suit the roof edge instead. It is worth mentioning up front when you ask for a price, because it changes the plan.

How we attach to a house

The rule is the same on every Red Nose Lites install, historic or not. Clips are sized to the roof edge or the gutter lip. No staples, no nails and no screws into fascia, trim or shingles. Nothing goes into the wood, so there is nothing to patch when the lights come down.

Strands are commercial grade LED, custom cut to the runs on your house. On a complicated old roofline, that means no spare length coiled and tucked behind a bracket.

Design for the architecture, not against it

The mistake on historic houses is rarely too few lights. It is outlining everything. A Victorian with five gables and a wraparound porch, fully outlined, stops looking like a Victorian and starts looking like a diagram of one. A few rules that hold up:

• Pick the strongest line and commit to it. On a Victorian that is often the main front gable and the porch. On a bungalow it is usually the low, wide eave and the porch beam. On a symmetrical Colonial or Georgian front it is the main roofline.
• Protect symmetry where the house has it. A formal front lit on one side only reads as a mistake.
• Let brick and stone stay dark. Old masonry looks good in the spill from the roofline, and drilling into old mortar is damage you cannot undo cleanly.
• Keep one color temperature. Warm and cool white on the same facade reads as two separate jobs.

Power on an older house

Older homes often have few exterior outlets, and the ones they have may have been added later on whatever circuit was handy. A few things to watch:

• Do not run cords through a window. Closing an old wood sash on a cord crushes the cord and can crack the sash or the glazing putty.
• LED helps, within limits. It draws far less than old incandescent strings, but it does not make an unknown circuit safe.
• If you do not know what else is on the circuit, or the outlet has no GFCI protection, that is a question for an electrician before it is a lighting question.

What is fine to do yourself, and what is not worth paying for

A lot of good historic house decorating needs no ladder and no fasteners. A wreath on an over the door hanger. Garland laid along a porch rail and tied loosely with soft ties. Battery candles in the front windows. That is an afternoon, and you should not pay anyone for it.

Some things are not worth paying for either. Outlining every gable, bracket and window on an ornate house costs more and usually looks worse. Wrapping balusters one at a time reads as clutter from the street.

Where a crew earns its keep is the work that can hurt the house or you: second and third story rooflines, steep pitches, slate roofs, and anything that means leaning a ladder against old gutters or soft trim.

Takedown matters as much as the install

Plenty of trim damage happens in January, when lights come down in a hurry on a cold day and get yanked rather than unclipped. Every Red Nose Lites install includes takedown after the holidays and off season storage, so you are not on a ladder in January and the lights live with us, not in your attic. It also includes design, installation by insured crews and in season maintenance, with a 24 hour service guarantee during the season. There are no contracts and no long term commitments. The full sequence is on the how it works page, and home scope is under residential installation.

Getting a price for an older home

Call (615) 595-9686, describe the house and what you want lit, and you can get a price on that call. For an older home, a few details make that conversation accurate:

• How many stories, and roughly how steep the roof is.
• The roof material: asphalt shingle, slate, tile or metal.
• Whether the gutters hang off the eave or are built into the cornice.
• Which features you want lit, and anything fragile you want left alone.

If the house is large or unusual and you would rather someone look at it in person, a site visit is available. It is an option, not a step you have to clear first. You can also use the quote form.

Red Nose Lites is family owned and has been lighting homes around Nashville, Hillwood, Green Hills and Franklin since 2006. An old house should look the same in March as it did in November.