15 May

It’s National Safety Month: Is Your Outdoor Lighting Keeping You Safe?

In world filled with unpredictable dangers, extra safety is always a positive investment. Every year, the National Safety Council emphasizes this point by raising safety awareness during National Safety Month. In addition to seeking to reduce the leading causes of injuries on the road and at work, NSC also aims to minimize the major causes of accidents around the home.

Safety at home isn’t just about the locks on your doors and the railings on your stairs. The exterior area of your home is also lurking with hidden dangerous, especially once the sun sets and it is more difficult to see your surroundings. This is exactly why professional outdoor lighting is such a worthwhile investment. Read More

05 May

The Art of Design In Landscape Lighting

Award Winning Design: Landscape Lighting

Our work was recently featured in Landscape and Irrigation Magazine by one of our trusted manufacturers, Brilliance LED. With the combination of our award winning designs and our high standards for landscape lighting products, it’s unlikely you’ll find anyone better in the St Petersburg, FL area. Here is a small piece of what was featured in the article:

This elegant Italian waterfront home on Brightwaters Blvd is nestled in the exclusive Snell Isle neighborhood of St Petersburg, Fla. With a lush, tropical landscape design embracing a grand entrance, the landscape lighting adds to the sophisticated aura. This home is a showpiece that represents the people that occupy it. Every feature space and architectural detail of the home itself is illuminated. Coppermoon brass bullet fixtures with Brilliance LED lamps highlight the home’s unique elements of architectural style. The tropical landscape features a variety of tall palms, all uplight, with path lights highlighting the beds and the paths. On the rear pool deck, up lighting was used on the large royal palms around the pool with the city just beyond the palms.

If you would like to read the article in its entirety, be sure to check us out in Landscape and Irrigation Magazine. For any and all Landscape Lighting needs in the Tampa area, be sure to call decorating elves!

1-800-MY-LITES
www.decoratingelves.com

20 Apr

Using Outdoor Landscape Lighting to Your Full Advantage

Nick Shriver, the lead designer and founder of the full service outdoor lighting and landscape lighting service company Decorating Elves, knows all about the benefits of outdoor lighting. Thanks to Nick’s extensive experience with Architecture and Landscape Design, certification as a Low Voltage Lighting Technician, membership with the Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals, and state contractor licenses in Florida and Georgia, he is an outdoor lighting expert with a passion for creating beautiful lighting landscapes for others. Read More

10 Apr

Achieving the Ultimate Outdoor Lighting

Achieving the perfect outdoor lighting for your home requires a true blend of art and science. When lighting design is carefully paired with landscape design, something magical happens. As you work with a professional lighting company like Decorating Elves to paint your nighttime landscape with the beautiful accents of light, take these tips and ideas into consideration.

Using the Right Type of Spotlight Read More

20 Mar

The Dangers of Choosing DIY Retail Lighting Systems Over Professional Grade Systems

It’s human nature to search for the best deal before making a purchase. When faced with the same product for $40 or $80, most people will select the $40 choice. However, the cheapest option is not always the best option, especially when it comes it home improvement investments. Your outdoor lighting system is no exception.

Accelerated Wear and Tear Read More

10 Mar

Use Outdoor Lighting to Make the Most of Summer Weather

There’s nothing like summertime weather to put you in the mood for relaxation and socialization. While there are plenty of exciting summer events to attend, like concerts and brewfests, you can also make the most of your own outdoor space. Whether you have a huge three acre backyard or a small deck or patio, you can still embrace strategic outdoor lighting techniques in order to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible. Read More

20 Feb

The Innovation That Puts Customized Lighting in Your Hands – Literally

In addition to beautiful stone hardscapes and strategically placed landscaping, outdoor lighting is one of the most transformative additions to your outdoor space. Whether utilized in a business or residential application, outdoor lighting extends the usefulness of a space long after the sun sets, but its purposes don’t stop there. Outdoor lighting can also be used creatively to set a specific atmosphere and emphasize the best features of your outdoor area. Thanks to cutting edge technology, all of this can now be accomplished from the palm of your hand. Read More

10 Feb

LED Lights Bring Endless Possibilities to Outdoor Landscapes

Whether you have a sprawling few acre property or a small and intimate backyard, you can utilize outdoor lighting to transform your landscape and make your space infinitely more useful at night. Better yet, you can harness the considerable power of LED lighting to enjoy a host of perks like energy conservation, cost savings, longer life, better quality of light, and so much more.

How is LED Lighting Different Than Traditional? Read More

12 Jan

Outdoor Lighting isn’t Just for the Holidays

52376816 - hanging decorative christmas lights for a wedding ceremonyThe holiday season is always an exciting time for outdoor lighting as houses transform with festive red, green, blue, and silver lights that emphasize the cheer of winter. But once January rolls around, the lights are packed away until next year, and homes are left looking ordinary and unassuming. That is, unless landscape lighting immediately takes the place of holiday lighting. With the help of innovative outdoor lighting solutions and an experienced lighting team to implement your ideas, you can design a stunning landscape that is just as appealing as those Christmas lights. Read More

09 Dec

Attention: Watering Lights Does Not Make Them Brighter!

favim-com-23212It’s that time of year again when customers often find that their holiday lights have mysteriously decided to stop working. We know it can be frustrating but 95% of the time it’s because water has tripped the system while they were running. Here’s some simple solutions to keep your lights running uninterrupted this holiday season.

Sprinklers

To prevent your automatic or timed sprinkler system from soaking your light strands and tripping the GFCI, we recommend that you reset the timer on your sprinkler system so that watering occurs while the holiday lights are off (such as in the early morning).

GFCI “Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter” Outlet Trips

A GFCI is installed in most homes as a protection system that shuts down the flow of electricity to an electrical outlet when it senses a ground in the line. When outdoor holiday lights become excessively wet this will often cause the GFCI to trip. Should a GFCI circuit trip, it will need to be reset to restore power to the outlet.

Wait until the rain or sprinkler system has stopped and the light strands have had a chance to dry out before attempting to reset the GFCI. Should you decide to plug your lights into an alternate GFCI protected outlet, please remember that you must still reset the previous circuit to restore the flow of electricity to that outlet.