Decorators Deck Walls with Light

What was once a Christmas ritual for homeowners has become a full-time seasonal business for some companies in Northwest Arkansas.

And affluent area residents will pay as much as $12,000 to have someone else deck their walls with Christmas lights.

“Most people don’t want to mess with it at all,” said Dave Gretzmier of Fayetteville, a distributor for Brite Ideas, an exterior lighting company based in Omaha, Neb.

Gretzmier has picked up 32 new clients this year, bringing his total to about 100. He started with 12 clients in 1998.

This year, they have paid anywhere from $515 to $12,000 to have him decorate the exterior of their homes, as well as lawns, with Christmas lights. The average client pays between $1,500 and $2,000, Gretzmier said, which means he’ll bring in about $200,000 in revenue during this Christmas season. Some of his clients are commercial businesses but most are residences.

Many homeowners don’t have time to do the decorating themselves, and many of them don’t want to crawl around on the roof of their homes, which can be a dangerous place.

According to Unity Marketing, a research company based in Stevens, Penn., more than 90 percent of Americans decorate their homes for Christmas. In 2003, consumers spent $7.6 billion on Christmas decorations nationwide.

The $12,000 Question

So what can a client get for $12,000?

For that amount, Gretzmier’s customer got an 8-foot wreath on his house, lights lining his driveway and fence and candles in every window, among other things.

“You’d think, ‘Well, that looks like a winter wonderland,'” Gretzmier said. “Well, it does, but it’s very classy. There’s not stuff thrown everywhere.”

The cost is for the purchase of the lights, installation, take down, maintenance and storage. The lights also have a three-year warranty, he said. But these lights aren’t the typical retail lights.

Brite Ideas has commercial-grade light bulbs, called C-9s, and they also have 4-foot sections of lights on a frame that can be attached to the eaves of the house. The frame has steel extenders that have Christmas lights on them, which have a protected cover so sleet or hail won’t bust the bulb.

Gretzmier said last year he knew of six Christmas light decorating companies, but this year there are only three in the area, all of which are franchises of national companies. One reason for the decline in distributors could be due to products not being sturdy enough, he said. If someone wanted to make a decent wage in the market, which “grew like crazy at one time,” its not enough to just put up regular lights, Gretzmier said.

“You can’t be the Wal-Mart of this business,” he said.

Brite Ideas’ light products can last five to nine years, and the frame can last 15 to 20 years. That means the lights will last longer than the store-bought kind people put up themselves. The first-year cost will be higher than any subsequent years because all the customer is paying for is the maintenance, labor and storage, which can be about $1,000, depending on the amount of products.

“Most people, when they call me … they just want [light decorating] done,” Gretzmier said. “They want a service. But when they see it and they see the frames and the different things we can do to houses, all the sudden this becomes a very nice high-end product they can put on their home that has quality, is long-lasting, repairable and has value to them.”

Christmas light installation isn’t Gretzmier’s only business. Like many distributors, his other business is lawn care. Many of his lawn care customers eventually became Christmas light decoration clients, which lead to a steady year-round business.

“Every year you grow, every year you pick up a few more,” he said. “Because it’s mostly going to be people that see our trucks, people that follow the Yellow Pages. It’s a slow growing business.”

As far as design is concerned, Brite Ideas has a catalog full of lighting decorations, from Christmas trees to bows to Santa in his sleigh with reindeer. The lights are something customers can enjoy for years.

“You’re talking about customers that feel value in it and not just this year,” he said. “Most people would never imagine spending $3,000 for 30 days of enjoyment.”

Christmas Décor

Tina Melke is new to the Christmas lighting franchise. This year, she and her husband Scott purchased an existing Christmas Décor franchise and started adding to the clientele. They, too, have a lawn care service, Melke Lawn and Landscape Co. in Fort Smith.

Tina Melke said they had installed commercial-grade Christmas lights before becoming a distributor. When they bought the franchise, there were 65 customers, and they have been able to add about 35 customers since then.

About 20 percent of their clients are in Northwest Arkansas, with about 10 to 12 houses in the Clear Creek subdivision in Johnson. The rest are in Fort Smith, including Fianna Hills subdivision, a heavily traveled route during Christmastime because of all the decorated houses.

The biggest difference between Christmas Décor and Brite Ideas, is that Melke’s franchise has an option to lease the lighting decorations. This makes it cheaper (around $600 to $1,200 has been the average for 4,000 SF in Northwest Arkansas) and easier to change products from year to year. Also, Melke said, if a customer purchases the lights, then they are responsible for any damage to the lights in cases of weather, like hail or sleet.

“If it snows or ices, commercial-grade lighting … I don’t care who you are or what product you have, some lights are not going to make it,” Melke said. “If you buy your lights, you’re going to be out that cost [to replace them]. If you lease your lights you don’t have to worry about it. You’re going to get your lights replaced [for free].”

It costs the same the first year whether someone chooses to buy or lease the lights. However, the second year the cost goes down.

Christmas Décor also offers installation, takedown, storage and maintenance on its products, including wreaths, garlands and “anything that the customer wants,” she said.

Melke said she has two crews of two people that work seven days a week from the beginning of November. It will take them about five hours to put up lights on a 4,000-SF house.

Designers Bring Holiday Cheer Inside the Home

Some people are just too busy to decorate their homes for the Christmas season. That’s where an interior designer comes in handy, even if it is only for once a year.

Casey Roark, who runs her own interior design company out of her home in Fayetteville, said hiring interior designers for the holidays is popular in Northwest Arkansas. It all basically comes down to time: People who don’t have a lot of time don’t want to spend it all on decorating.

Hiring an interior designer can cost from $40 to $175 per hour in the area, Roark said. A home-decorating job can take up to four days, and sometimes that’s working eight- to 12-hour days, she said.

Some people don’t care about how much money they spend, they just want it done and they want it done differently, Roark said. Some of her decorating gigs are for parties. Others are just to get homes ready for the holidays.

“A lot of times I think the incentive to get your house done and maybe go a little bit more over the top for the holidays is because you’re having a party or you’re having friends over or you’re having Christmas dinner at your house,” Roark said.

The main decorations are trees and mantles, she said. Some people just want a tree in their entryway decorated, and others want every room in the house decorated.

Roark, who has clients in Fort Smith as well as in Northwest Arkansas, said she had about eight to 10 clients this year who hired her to decorate for Christmas, and many of those are returning clients.

The trend seems to be that interior designers are being hired not only for feedback and opinions, but also because many executives don’t have much time, she said.

“It’s gotten to the point to where I think … it’s gotten popular, especially in this area — everybody’s building,” Roark said. “People want something different, but people have got kids and they’re working … and they want it done. Part of the hustle and bustle of Christmas is getting your house done.”