Light the Deck with Ambient Light
We love spending time on our deck. We always comment on how much better our deck is than any restaurant. We listen to birds, watch ducks in a pond and chat with neighbors who walk by. You can see everything until it gets dark.
The deck has one floodlight, but it is blinding and unflattering. We needed better lighting!
I bought cafe lights to put on the deck for our wedding reception. They were never used, and I don't know why. I am a "use what you have" kind of gal so we came up with an idea to make them useful.
There are no trees around to hang lights on, nor anything we can use to string them so they shine overhead. Read more...
We improvised and stapled the railings directly to the handrail. The staples are tucked under so that they won't interfere with setting up things on top. They're also far enough away from the edge to keep them safe.
The railing hides the lights, so no one can complain about them being on all year round.
The deck lights create a soft glow that allows us to spend more time on it! Click here for details
I've heard that these cafe lights are fragile. You need to be careful when putting them up. We had a few break while putting them in. We haven't had a single broken one since installing them. One strand was left over from the project. We're saving this to use for lightbulbs in the event that any of them break.
The lights originally cost around $20 per strand, but we used 3 strands plus another one for extra bulbs. So this project will cost you about $80. We already had the light strands, so I consider it to be free. This is another way we reused items from our wedding. A light fixture for an outdoor space can cost between $30 and $300 depending on the style. I believe we did okay.
Tommy took a little more than an hour to staple all of them together. Visit
We are glad we took on this project. This is the cherry on top of our deck experience!
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