Tag: solar post caps

Lighting Your Deck Could Save You Hundreds of Dollars

Lighting Your deck could save you hundreds!!

Unique, elegant lighted post caps
Unique, elegant lighted post caps

Yes that is right.  You can save money by installing deck lighting.  Let me just tell you a quick personal story about how I could have saved around $200 in just one night.

Being married with two kids, we don’t get to go out that often.  But one night last summer we went out with another couple for some dinner and drinks.   We didn’t go anywhere too fancy or too expensive.

Let’s just see where my money went:
$5.25 beers, $9.75 wine and cocktails for the girls, $10.00 appetizers, $20 – $25 dinner x 2 for my wife and I, an $8.00 shared desert, and a $10 per hour babysitter.  All told I spent nearly $200.

Roman Bronze Deck lighting from Moonlight Decks
Roman Bronze Deck lighting from Moonlight Decks

And what was I thinking the whole time I was out?  Well in between waiting forever for our expensive drinks, getting bumped into by the wait staff and other pushy customers, and dining on food we could have easily prepared just as well at home, I was thinking how much better off we would have been by entertaining our friends at our house.  Let’s see how our experience would have been different…

It was a nice cool night outside.  We have 11 lighted post caps on our deck which provide a really nice ambient light.  It is not too bright and not so dark that we can’t see each other.  It’s actually kind of romantic.  And it is much better than using the swarm inducing flood lights or smelly citronella candles.  The low voltage lights don’t really attract any bugs at all.

Illuminate Your Deck!
Illuminate Your Deck!

There certainly  wouldn’t have been any waiting at the bar for expensive drinks and there wouldn’t have been anyone pushing past us other than the kids.  There would have been no babysitter fees for either couple.  We could have had an entire bottle of wine for the same price as one glass at the restaurant.  We could have had an entire six-pack of beer for the same price as one beer at the restaurant.  We could have had steak or chicken on the grill  for all four of us AND our kids for the same price as my dinner at the restaurant.

Add safety and security to your home with our deck lights.
Add safety and security to your home with our deck lights.

All in all we probably could have easily saved $200 or more between the two couples.

Now I love to go out as much as anyone.  But if you are looking to save a few dollars and bring the party back to your house, why not enjoy the company of friends out on your lighted deck?

My lighted post caps are certainly not for everyone and they might not even be the right solution for you.  But even if they aren’t for you, I should be able to help you out with another suggestion.  Take a look at my website, www.MoonlightDecks.com,  and give me a call if you have any questions regarding lighting options for your deck.

Thanks!

Steve

Deck Lighting by Moonlight Decks

The birth of Moonlight Decks

Hello everyone, I am Steve Hodes Jr from Moonlight Decks.

Illuminate Your Deck
Illuminate Your Deck!

Let me first start off by telling you a little bit about myself and how I got into this business.

About 6 years ago I was working full time as a web developer. A friend of mine asked me to help him with a few landscape lighting jobs and I was happy to oblige and make a little extra money.

It was back breaking and dirty work. And I loved it.

The thing that most inspired me was how stunned I was at the dramatic transformation that lighting had on a previously dark house. It was artistic how the lights and shadows brought out beautiful nuances of homes.

Do you ever notice how you start to notice things in your life that surround you? For instance, if you have a newborn child, you start noticing the hundreds of mothers with newborns? Or if you’ve been eyeing a new car, you start to notice that car all over the road?

Well it was happening to me. I would drive down neighborhoods at night noticing 90% of the houses were completely dark! They needed me.

About 5% of the houses had lighting, but it looked like an airport runway of cheap solar blue lights. Ack. Tacky, I thought. Because now I knew what true quality lighting looked like.

Later on, after my new home was being built and we were deciding on the upgrades and add-ons, I noticed that the deck they had planned was puny at best. I asked for an estimate for a decent size deck and was floored at the price that came back to me. I knew I could do it myself for 1/3 of the cost.

So I did.

While I was working on it, I started noticing that every deck looked the same. I wanted something different. So I tried those copper caps from Home Depot. Apparently the makers of that cap don’t realize that it hails here in the Midwest. My investment was soon scattered all over the yard and dented up from the smallest of hail storms.

My friend spoke up and said, “Why don’t we make our own caps?” So we came up with this Hammered looking pyramid shaped cap. We had it made out of bronze. It was amazing and weighed in at nearly 16 lbs!  Then my friend said, “We should put a light in it!”

So we did. And it was beautiful!

Then I said, “We should sell these!”

And that was how Moonlight Decks was born. I used my web design experience and have been selling the custom made lighted post caps all over the country since 2004.

If you’d like to see some great options for lighting your deck, visit our website at www.moonlightdecks.com.  We can do custom sizes and colors as well.