Christmas lights installation services in Decatur, GA
Decatur is four and a half square miles of front porches. Oakhurst and Winnona Park are bungalow country, Glennwood Estates and the Great Lakes streets hold larger 1920s houses under old canopy, and the blocks off the square are close enough together that a crew parks at the curb and walks the ladders in. We hang commercial-grade LEDs cut to your roofline, mount them with clips that never touch the trim, set the timer before we go, and come back in January to take it all down. Quotes are free, written, and itemized.
Bungalow porches and narrow streets: how a Decatur install actually runs
Decatur decorates early and it decorates in public. The tree lighting on the square happens in the first week of December, Santa throws the switch, and a menorah goes up beside it a few nights later. People walk to that. Then they walk home past every house on the block, which is the real reason a display matters more here than in a subdivision where nobody is out of a car. A single warm line along a bungalow eave and a garland on the porch rail gets noticed in Decatur. So does a crooked one.
The city was chartered in 1823 and most of what we light went up between about 1905 and 1940. Oakhurst grew along the old trolley line and filled in fast, mostly between its 1910 incorporation and the annexations that ended in 1916, with brick and frame Craftsman bungalows on Mead Road, Second Avenue, and the streets around Hood Circle. Several of them came out of pattern books by Leila Ross Wilburn, an Agnes Scott graduate and one of the first women practicing architecture in Atlanta. Winnona Park holds around 700 homes in the southeast corner. Glennwood Estates went up on the northeast side, a third of it in the 1920s and larger than most houses of the period. The MAK district, ten blocks along McDonough, Adams, and Kings Highway, became Decatur's first local historic district. All of it means low eaves, deep porches, exposed rafter tails, and original wood trim that we are not going to put a staple through.
A quote here is built from measurements, never from the curb. We count roofline feet eave by eave, add the porch and dormer runs that make a bungalow look finished, note the ladder heights, count the trees and foundation shrubs worth lighting, and settle on how tightly the line is spaced. Each of those is a separate line on a free written quote. Text photos of the front to (470) 777-7443 or send them through the contact form, and most Decatur quotes go back out within one business day. Book by November 1st and 10% comes off.
Decatur is 31 miles from our Cumming base, straight down GA-400 and around I-285, so it sits on regular route days with the rest of our DeKalb work. The unincorporated addresses that say Decatur on the mail are on the same days.
Front porches do half the work here
A Decatur bungalow has a low roof, a wide porch, and columns or piers holding it up, and that porch is the part the sidewalk sees. We run the main eave, carry the line across the porch roof so it does not stop at the corner, wrap the columns, and hang garland on the rail. Often 90 to 140 feet of roofline plus the porch work.
No fasteners in ninety-year-old trim
Original fascia, rafter tails, and porch beams on a 1920s Decatur house are worth more than any display. Nothing gets stapled, screwed, or nailed. Shingle clips grip the tab edge, gutter clips hook the lip, and porch columns take tension wraps that leave nothing behind. Crews are fully insured, and on the tight lots here the ladder feet get boarded so they do not sink into a wet yard.
Small houses, close together, one look per block
Decatur lots are narrow and the houses sit near the street, so a display is read next to its neighbors whether you planned it that way or not. Warm white on a brick bungalow, slightly larger bulbs on the bigger Glennwood Estates and Great Lakes houses, color only where the house can carry it. When two or three neighbors book together we keep the bulb size and spacing consistent so the block reads as one run.
Service and takedown on the Decatur loop
Crews work Decatur on the same days as the rest of our DeKalb route, so a dark section usually gets a visit within a couple of days and the service call costs nothing. January is takedown, included in the original number. Strands come off in order, the clips come off with them, and everything is coiled and labeled for your basement or held in our storage until next October.
Craftsman bungalows in Oakhurst and Winnona Park
Oakhurst is the neighborhood people picture when they think of Decatur housing: one and a half stories, low-pitched roof, wide overhang, deep front porch, brick or frame, built mostly in the 1910s and 20s on lots that a crew can cross in ten steps. Winnona Park is the same generation with a slightly bigger footprint, roughly 700 homes in the southeast corner near Agnes Scott. On both, the eave run is short but the interesting work is everything below it: the porch roof, the columns, the dormer, the foundation hollies. A finished bungalow usually reads as one warm line across the eave and porch, wrapped piers, and a wreath centered on the door. Glennwood Estates and the Clairemont side hold larger 1920s houses with real second stories and steeper gables, which take a taller ladder and more footage. Our residential installation package is identical on all of them: our LEDs, our clips, our crew, in-season service, January takedown.
Storefronts around the square and in Oakhurst Village
Downtown Decatur is a walking district, which is a specific kind of commercial job. The square fills for the tree lighting in early December and again for the bonfire later in the month, and the restaurants and shops on the surrounding blocks are open through all of it. We install before doors open or after close so no ladder ever sits in a lunch crowd, and we work off the building rather than the sidewalk wherever the facade allows. Garland and warm white outlines suit the older brick fronts around the square; the newer mixed-use buildings take a cleaner single line. Oakhurst Village, the small commercial cluster in the middle of the neighborhood, gets the same treatment on a smaller scale. Timers are set to your posted hours so nothing runs at 3 a.m., and commercial calls move to the front of the service queue for the rest of the season.
One outlet, one circuit, and a house built in 1925
Most Decatur bungalows were wired long before anyone imagined a holiday display, and even after a rewire the exterior often comes down to one GFCI outlet on the porch. Commercial-grade LEDs are what make that workable. A full bungalow roofline, a wrapped oak, lit shrubs, and a door wreath together draw a small fraction of what old incandescent C9 strings pulled, so one circuit carries the whole front without a breaker trip on a cold night when the heat is running. Every strand is cut to the measured run, so nothing coils behind a downspout, and each connection is sealed with the plug turned down against the rain. The crew sets and tests the timer before it leaves: on at dusk, off at whatever hour you pick.
Working under Decatur's protected canopy
Decatur takes its trees seriously enough to write a canopy ordinance around them, and the willow oaks and water oaks arching over these streets are the reason the neighborhoods look the way they do. They also block the roofline from half the sidewalk. The fix is to put light up into the yard instead of only on the house. We measure trunk circumference and the height to the first fork, wrap from the ground to that fork, and trace the first limbs where the shape earns it. Dogwoods and crape myrtles near the walk take mini lights. Foundation hollies and boxwoods get netted so the ground line reads finished under a dark porch. Nothing is nailed, screwed, or cinched tight enough to girdle bark, and the wraps come off in January with the rest of it. Tree wrapping and landscape lighting is counted tree by tree, and the same canopy work carries east into Stone Mountain.
Where a Decatur number comes from
Five things move a Decatur quote. Roofline footage, measured eave by eave with the porch and dormer counted separately. Height and roof access, because a Glennwood Estates two-story needs ladders an Oakhurst cottage does not. Trees and shrubs, counted individually rather than guessed at. Outline density, which decides whether the line reads clean or bright. And specialty pieces: wreaths, garland runs, column wraps, path lights. Each is a line on a free, written, itemized quote, with the LEDs, clips, labor, in-season service, and January takedown already inside the number. Call or text (470) 777-7443 between 8 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday, or send photos through the form. Our what moves a quote page walks through each driver in detail.
Curbside parking, mid-season fixes, and January
Install season opens in late October and closes around December 15th. Decatur has one logistical quirk worth mentioning: the streets are narrow, the driveways are short, and on a lot of blocks the truck parks at the curb and the crew carries ladders and strand boxes to the house. That is normal and it is already in the schedule, so a bungalow still goes up in a morning. Once the display is running, crews are back through Decatur most weeks on the DeKalb loop between Atlanta and Tucker jobs, and a reported outage usually gets a visit within two days at no charge. January is takedown: strands off, clips off, gutter and shingle edges checked as we go, everything coiled and labeled. If a different company hung your lights and never came back, we will take that display down too.
What Decatur homeowners ask before booking
Straight answers about bungalow rooflines, historic districts, and the canopy.
Do you cover the city of Decatur and the Decatur mailing addresses outside it?
Both. Inside the city that means Oakhurst, Winnona Park, Clairemont and the Great Lakes streets, Glennwood Estates, the MAK blocks, Ponce de Leon Heights, and everything within a walk of the square. Outside it, a large slice of unincorporated DeKalb carries a Decatur address, and those homes are on the same route days. Nothing about the quote changes either way.
Can you light a house in the MAK or Winnona Park historic district?
Yes. A seasonal light display is not a building alteration, so it does not go through the Certificate of Appropriateness process the way a new porch or window would. What matters is the mounting. We use clips and tension wraps only, put nothing through historic wood, and leave the trim exactly as we found it when the display comes down in January.
How is a Decatur installation quoted?
From measured footage first. Roofline feet by eave, porch, and dormer, then the ladder heights and roof access, then the trees and shrubs you want lit, then how densely the line is spaced, then any wreaths, garland, or column wraps. Every one of those is its own line on a free written quote. Photos of the front let us measure most Decatur bungalows remotely, usually back within one business day.
Can the lights be up before the tree lighting on the square?
Usually, if you book by November 1st, which also takes 10% off. Installs run from late October to about the middle of December and the pre-Thanksgiving dates fill first. We can hang the display early and leave the timer off until you want it running, which is what most Decatur clients do so the house is ready the night of the tree lighting.
My yard is mostly canopy trees. Does that limit what you can do?
It changes the design more than it limits it. Decatur protects its canopy and we are not touching those trees beyond wrapping them, which needs no permission and does no harm. Big oaks and maples get the trunk wrapped and the lower limbs traced, so the light lives above the porch line where the street can see it through the branches.
Get professional Christmas lights installation in Decatur, GA
Bungalow porches in Oakhurst, 1920s two-stories in Glennwood Estates, storefronts around the square: every Decatur display starts with measured footage and ends with a January takedown. Call or text (470) 777-7443 for a free itemized quote, and book by November 1st for 10% off.