Sheet S-4 · Outdoor and holiday lighting
Landscape and holiday lighting, installed, kept up and stored
Flowerbed lighting that shows off the planting, and custom cut Christmas lights that come down and go into storage when the season ends.
Chapter 01
Where do-it-yourself lights go wrong
Store-bought lighting fails in familiar ways. Fixtures get placed where they are easy to reach instead of where light does something, so a wall gets a hot spot and the bed beside it stays dark. Aimed wrong, a fixture throws glare into windows instead of grazing the surface it was meant to show.
Christmas lights have their own list. Roofline clips chew at trim, strands cut to the wrong length sag or stop short at a gable, and a January takedown ends with a tangled box in the garage and half the clips still on the house.
A multi-gable roofline is the hard case, because every peak and valley changes the run. It is the reason custom cut matters.
Dusk uplights grazing a brick wall above a fresh black mulch bed edged in brick pavers, with a RIAZ yard sign in the bed
How Riaz handles both kinds of lighting
Riaz does flowerbed landscape lighting and custom cut Christmas lighting, for residential and commercial properties alike.
For the holidays the crew installs the lights, maintains them throughout the holiday season, takes them down, and provides year round storage. One crew owns the whole season, so there is no box to hunt for in January and no one to chase if a strand goes dark in December.
The photo above is the TABA Parade of Homes house in Flint: new construction landscaping with a variety of plants, mulch and details for the 2 week period it was showcased. Dusk is when uplights earn their keep, warm light grazing brick over a fresh mulch bed.
Chapter 03
Planning the season
Lighting runs on the calendar, so start the conversation before you need the lights on. A web page is the wrong place for dates and prices. The answer depends on your roofline and on whether it is a home or a storefront, so ask Carson directly.
Questions worth asking any lighting company: how are the lights cut to the roofline, who comes back if a strand fails during the season, when do they come down, and where are they kept until next year. At Riaz the last three are part of the service: maintained through the season, taken down, stored year round.
Landscape lighting is a different conversation, because it is planned with the beds. Bring it up when you are talking about flowerbeds, a patio or a new planting.
Carson Riaz, (903) 508-0646, Monday to Friday 7 to 6, Saturday by appointment.
Takeoff · The lighting season
Four stations, one crew, start to storage.
Everything in this list is what the service covers in Riaz's own words. Nothing is priced here, because every roofline is different.
Landscape
Flowerbed lighting
Light placed with the beds, walls and planting it is meant to show.
Install
Custom cut Christmas lighting
Residential and commercial, cut to the property it goes on.
Maintain
Kept up through the holiday season
The crew that hung the lights looks after them until the season ends.
Takedown
Down, then stored year round
Taken down by the crew and kept until next year, not left in your garage.