A Starter Guide to Decorating Your Outdoor Space for the Holidays

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A Starter Guide to Decorating Your Outdoor Space for the Holidays

Even before Thanksgiving, many people were getting ready for the winter holidays by putting up decorations. Now that Thanksgiving is over, holiday decoration is in full effect.

Holiday decorating is a very important part of some people’s experience. People host walking tours to see decorations on the fronts of homes and stores, and travelers from towns over will pay to see them! Decorating your outdoor space for the holidays is like giving the rest of the world some of your holiday cheer, but the thought of doing so is stressful.

Joining in the festivities isn’t as daunting as it looks. If you follow these tips, you’ll be spreading that holiday cheer in no time.

Safety First!

You want your outdoor décor to be to die for... but you shouldn’t literally risk life and limb to get it there. When you’re putting up your lights or other decorations, please be safe out there.

Plug all of your electrical decorations into GFCIs, or ground-fault circuit interrupters. A ground fault occurs when there’s damage to electrical wire (and, since you’re exposing your decorations to the elements, electrical damage is more likely to happen outside), and it can electrocute you. A GFCI works to prevent that.

Avoid using a metal ladder when you’re hanging your electrical decorations. Metal conducts electricity, so something that gives you a light electrical shock without a metal ladder could prove disastrous with one. Opt for a wooden ladder to hang those things. And make sure someone is there to hold the bottom of the ladder while you’re on it!

Don’t secure your cords or decorations in a damaging way; avoid using nails or screws to hang up your decorations, because they leave permanent holes. You may puncture the insulation or wiring in your space — and that can start a fire. You want to secure the cords and decorations to protect your space (and your household) from wind damage, so use clips or siding hooks to fasten them.

Have a Plan

You don’t want it to seem like a holiday decoration bomb went off nearby; haphazardly putting up decorations won’t result in stunning outdoor décor.

Observe your outdoor space: look around and take measurements where you need to (like window and door frames, or gutters). Then, you can decide the best look for it. Pinterest has some nice outdoor décor ideas. You can search for ideas on Google or even around your neighborhood, too.

Check Your Inventory

Eager to decorate your outdoor space, you open your box with the decorations from the last few years... only to find a string of lights on which 75% of the bulbs work, and some wreaths with missing branches. You take a deep breath and go to the store, which you tried to avoid doing because of holiday shoppers, hoping it has the decorations you need.

That seems to happen every year.

Isn’t it frustrating? Yeah, don’t do that. I mean, even in the best storage conditions, some of your decorations can break. You won’t completely avoid broken decorations, but you can avoid finding out at the last minute. Inspect your decorations maybe a few days before you decorate. Make sure the tops of the tree bulbs you’re planning to use aren’t dented, and that your garlands aren’t almost bald.

You absolutely do not want to find out your lights don’t work after you hang them on your roof or from your tree. Plug in your lights to test the lightbulbs before you climb up the ladder. That way, you can find out if you’ll need to buy some lights before it becomes stressful.

When you check your decorations, clean them. You don’t want people to mistake your late autumn/winter holiday decorations with all the cobwebs for Halloween ones. You can use a mixture of water and white distilled vinegar to gently wipe down your decorations with non-fabric surfaces (like plastic wreaths/trees, lights, or tree bulbs).

You won’t get many fabric outdoor decorations, because your decorations are supposed to withstand harsh weather. There’s a chance you will use fabric bows outside, though. In that case, you can wipe those (a little more intensely) with your vinegar and water mixture. You can add a smidgen of soap.

Use the Right Stuff

When looking through your decorations, you come across a box of holiday lights. You find, while you’re in the middle of decorating your roof, that the box says “INDOOR” in a small font. You might think it’s a good move to keep putting the lights on the roof; they look virtually the same as outdoor lights, and they’re good enough to put trees without being a fire hazard. What’s the harm?

A lot! Indoor lights are made so they won’t set your tree on fire. Outdoor and outdoor/indoor lights are certified to stand up to precipitation and extreme weather, while indoor lights aren’t. It’ll set your space on fire, and you don’t want that. Check the lights carefully to make sure your lights are safe to use outdoors; the box or the tag on the string of lights will tell you that.

Be Smart About It

Keep the passersby in mind. Where will they see? Will they be scouring your space’s exterior for decorations?

If your responses to those questions are ‘not everything’ and ‘I would hope not’, then you don’t need to decorate where people won’t see. For instance, when you put garland on the trunk of an enormous tree, you don’t have to wrap it around the tree. You can just zig-zag it on the front of the trunk.

Be mindful of your local Homeowner Association (the HOA), too. The HOA will let you do what you want to decorate for the holidays — as long as you don’t disturb your neighbors and violate the HOA rules.

We at Andy’s Quality Cleaning can’t be the designers for you, but we’d love to help you out! We can be the ones to clean your decorations before you hang them outside, and keep them organized so you won’t have to go digging for them. If you’re ready to spread holiday love, contact us today!