Every October, retailers are busily stocking their shelves with outdoor festoon lights and indoor fairy lights as shoppers start to prepare their homes for the coming Christmas season. As the nights get longer, illuminating the outside of your home is the best way to spread some much-needed cheer. However, with so many indoor and outdoor lighting options available, we look at the best ways to brighten your outdoor space on a budget throughout the coming festive season.
Outdoor Festoon Lights
To give your home a true vintage feel this Christmas, the best option for exterior lighting are outdoor festoon lights. These are the large golf-ball or jam-jar style warm white lights you often see in traditional autumn beer gardens, and they work wonders for the home as well. Many retailers offer custom outdoor festoon lights, tailoring the length of the cables to perfectly fit the outdoor space you wish to illuminate, so you don’t end up with reels of surplus cable winding around the patio.
Perfectly complemented by a chimenea and some warm blankets, outdoor festoon lights can give a gentle, warm glow to any corner of the garden. There are also solar-powered festoon lights available, which harvest solar power during the day and give gentle illumination throughout the evening. These not only offer a superb way to light your patio but are also a great way to achieve delicate outdoor lighting, without the need to increase your electricity consumption.
Fairy Lights
The fairy light is a mainstay of Christmas lighting, and the breadth of variations on offer means there is every conceivable shape from sharp icicle lights to soft glowing berries. Choosing the right fairy light can often depend on the shape of your home and the size of the area you want to illuminate. LED string lights can make a beautiful spectacle of a bare winter tree.
However, don’t be tempted to overdo the Christmas lights this season, as this is one area of home decoration where less is definitely more. Be careful to use your lights to accent your space, instead of trying to dominate the neighbourhood!
