October 2017 - No Fuss Lights

Yes, Virginia – Some People Actually Hate Christmas Lights

We at No Fuss Lights couldn’t fathom why some people don’t really care for Christmas lights. They’re beautiful, festive, and smile-inducing – so what’s not to like?

Then we did a little research and found out why some folks do indeed hate holiday lights. Here are some of the main reasons:

After working so hard to put them up, half of them come down the next time the wind blows.
Neighborhood cats like them a little too much – and claw them loose from the roof or trees.
The lights work perfectly while on the ground, but go out once they’re hung up.
Light strands seem to go out and then come on again with no explanation.
People hate untangling Christmas light strands every holiday season.
Broken bulbs are a common occurrence, and no one likes picking pieces of glass out of their lawn.
People climb up their ladders only to discover they don’t have enough light clips.
People climb up their ladders and hang up their lights only to discover that the strands don’t reach the end of their roofline.
The lights are hung perfectly – and then a fuse burns out, which leads to another trip to the hardware store.
When one bulb goes out on a strand, THEY ALL GO OUT!!!

OK, we get it now. But No Fuss Lights can help with that.

We’ll bring our own high-quality LED lights to your home, take care of all the decorating that needs to be done, and then come back after the holidays to remove all the lights for you. Plus, if a bulb burns out or a strand comes loose during the holiday season, we’ll come back to remedy the problem – usually within a day.

Call No Fuss Lights today at 281-809-7021 (or fill out this form) for a free estimate. Because you deserve a little less holiday stress and a little more Christmas joy this year!

Image credit: Cameron Russell/Flickr

No Fuss Lights Believes in the Astros!

We at No Fuss Lights are just now getting our voices back from hollering well into Saturday night after the Houston Astros’ ALCS Game 7 victory over those dastardly New York Yankees at Minute Maid Park. Now, we’re ready to scream at our TV sets starting tonight when the ‘Stros battle the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Sure, No Fuss Lights is happy that the Rockets have started off their season so well, but we’ve been infected with Astros Fever as much as any other Houstonian. And even though the series begins in LA, Houston might have a bit of an edge in Game 1.

Why? Because the expected temperature at the stadium at the start of tonight’s game is expected to be around 97 degrees. That’s unusually hot for this time of year in SoCal; but since Houston’s average high temperatures during the summertime are about 10 degrees above those seen in Los Angeles, hopefully our players might be less affected by the heat.

Here’s the full World Series schedule:

DATE	GAME
TONIGHT	Astros at Dodgers, Game 1, 7 p.m., FOX
WEDNESDAY	Astros at Dodgers, Game 2, 7 p.m., FOX
FRIDAY	Dodgers at Astros, Game 3, 7 p.m., FOX
SATURDAY	Dodgers at Astros, Game 4, 7 p.m., FOX
SUNDAY	Dodgers at Astros, Game 5*, 7 p.m., FOX
TUESDAY	Astros at Dodgers, Game 6*, 7 p.m., FOX
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 1	Astros at Dodgers, Game 7*, 7 p.m., FOX

All times listed are Houston time.

*-if necessary

If you’re as much of an Astros fan as we are at No Fuss Lights, perhaps you may want to line your front walk or yard with orange LED lights to show everyone the depth of your ‘Stros loyalty. Feel free to give No Fuss Lights a call at 281-809-7021 if you’re interested in having us come out and help you with that.

Go Astros! We believe!

How To Bring Good Luck Into Your Home This Christmas

Maybe you saw the No Fuss Lights blog post a week ago which listed various Christmas superstitions and everything that can bring you bad luck during the yuletide season. Perhaps you wondered, “I don’t want any bad Christmas mojo. How do I get some good luck during the holidays?”

Ask and ye shall receive!

According to superstition, you will be the recipient of good luck if:

You kiss the oldest person in the home on Christmas Day
You hear a cricket chirp on Christmas Day
You are the first person to hear a rooster crow on Christmas morning
The wind blows on Christmas Day
You wish someone a Merry Christmas before putting on your shoes and socks
You eat breakfast by candlelight on Christmas Day
You are the first person to open the front door on Christmas morning (and sweep the bad spirits out of the house)
The first visitor to the home on Christmas is a black-haired man
You place fish scales under the plates for Christmas dinner
You carry that a scale from a fish eaten on Christmas Day in your pocket all year long
You give coins to a beggar on Christmas Day
You sneeze on Christmas Day
If a cherry tree branch placed in water at the start of advent flowers by Christmas
You remove the Christmas decorations from your home on the 12^th night of Christmas
You contact No Fuss Lights (at 281-809-7021) and let us decorate your home beautifully for the holiday season so you will have less stress and more time to spend on other holiday tasks.*

*-Fact, not superstition

The Rockets Have Launched! And We’re “Pauling” For Them!

At No Fuss Lights, we’re multitasking. We’re working hard to serve our customers while at the same time keeping an eye on the Astros as they try to beat the Yankees and punch their ticket to the World Series. But there’s something happening tonight that we as Houstonians can’t overlook – the start of the Houston Rockets’ 2017-18 regular season!

And the Rockets are off to a superb start. Their first game was on the road in Oakland against the defending league-champion Golden State Warriors. No problem. Houston eked out a 122-121 win despite leading for a total of 99 seconds in the game. Then the Rockets had to turn around and play another road game in Sacramento – and wound up with another victory by a score of 105-100. Houston will finally begin its home season on Saturday night at 7pm when they play host to their in-state rivals, the Dallas Mavericks.

Of course, this season also marks the beginning of the “CP3 era” in Houston as newly-acquired point guard Chris Paul plays his first regular-season games in a Rockets uniform. Rockets’ fans are stoked at seeing Paul team up with James Harden in the backcourt, since the duo averages almost 40 points a game combined over the careers.

At No Fuss Lights, we’re hoping that Harden, Paul, and the rest of the Rockets “light up” the scoreboards this year as well as we light up our customers’ homes and businesses during the holiday season! If you want to see how our “holiday dream team” can make your home look beautiful this Christmas, give us a call at 281-809-7021 today.

Go Rockets!

This Christmas, Get Superstitious

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You survived this month’s “Friday the 13^th” without succumbing to bad luck.

The superstition’s origin isn’t fully known, though many believe that it stems from the 13 attendees at the Last Supper (Jesus plus his 12 apostles) and that Jesus died on the following day, which was a Friday.Here’s something else you probably didn’t know that there are lots of superstitions related to Christmas?

Here’s something else you probably didn’t know: there are a bunch of superstitions related to Christmas.

Like what, you ask? Well, here are some of them:

Cutting Christmas cake before Christmas Eve
Eating the pie that you cut yourself
Picking up fruits or nuts from the ground on Christmas Day
Eating nuts on Christmas Day without honey (you’ll lose your teeth)
Failing to eat plum mince pie at Christmas dinner
Departing the Christmas dinner table before everyone else has finished eating
Being the first person to arrive home from church on Christmas Day
Avoiding a kiss under the mistletoe
Sending away Christmas carolers without giving them any money or refreshment
A screaming dog on Christmas Eve (it will go mad by the start of the new year)
Laundering a Christmas present before giving it to its recipient
Stepping on a cotton thread on Christmas Day
Failing to bathe on Christmas Day (you’ll be riddled with fevers and toothaches throughout the following year)
Sewing, spinning, or toting a spinning wheel from one side of your home to the other on Christmas Day
Wearing new shoes on Christmas Day
Giving shoes as a gift to a loved one for Christmas (the recipient will walk out of your life)
Leaving the dishes unwashed on Christmas Eve
Hanging Christmas lights after walking under a ladder, letting a black cat cross in front of you, and breaking a mirror

(OK, we made that last one up.)

If you want to avoid any Christmas light-related misfortune this year, just call No Fuss Lights and let us take care of this chore for you. You can call 281-809-7021 or fill out this form for a free estimate.

Or you can “test your luck” and hang your holiday lights on your own. But really – why tempt fate?

Should You Hang Christmas Lights on a Brand New Roof?

Because we’ve been installing Christmas lights on Houston-area homes for a long time, we’ve gotten to know a lot about roofs. So all of us at No Fuss Lights can appreciate the look (and feel!) of a newly-shingled roof – and we also understand why some homeowners might be nervous about putting Christmas lights on it.

We’ve certainly heard a few horror stories about homeowners or amateur light-hangers who used staple guns, screws, or nails to attach Christmas lights to roof shingles. In fairness, these methods will probably keep your lights from falling off your house during the holiday season – but they’ll leave holes in your shingles through which rain can leak into your roof decking throughout the remainder of the year.

At No Fuss Lights, we only use commercial-grade shingle tabs and multi-clips to secure Christmas light strands to your roof. These products do not compromise the integrity of your shingles or roof in any way. Where appropriate, we also fasten the Christmas lights to your gutters or eaves and leave the shingles alone entirely. (We also discourage placing lights along upper roof ridge lines if shingle tabs are required.)

In short, No Fuss Lights has plenty of experience in hanging attractive, durable holiday lights on homes without damaging their roofs at all. But if you are still apprehensive, don’t worry – we can still decorate your home beautifully without putting Christmas lights on your roof. Our expert designers can work with you to create a dazzling and festive display for your home and property.

Give No Fuss Lights a call today at 281-809-7021 or fill out this form for a free estimate. We look forward to meeting you – and seeing your roof!

Getting a No Fuss Lights Quote Over the Telephone is… Well, “No Fuss!”

You’ve all heard about the “magic of the holidays?” Well, No Fuss Lights can perform some “magic” of our own… by providing you with a price quote over the phone without having to see your property!

OK, it’s not exactly “magic.” No Fuss Lights simply takes down information about your home or commercial property, enters the data into its design software, and presto! A basic estimate is provided for you.

An actual photo of a No Fuss Lights associate providing a free estimate over the phone.

Because No Fuss Lights has plenty of experience installing Christmas lights for many different types of properties, it can utilize the “Measurements” feature of Google Maps to compute the approximate area of your property. Plus, if you provide the square footage of your home or building along with the number of stories, No Fuss Lights can determine approximately how many feet of lights it will take to outline your structure. Once we add in any extras you might like (such as wreaths, garlands, or illuminated yard art), we can tally up the costs and give you our pricing estimate within minutes.

Of course, No Fuss Lights loves to send one of our designers to your home or business to meet with you face to face and provide you with an on-the-spot estimate. But we understand that many people are extremely busy during October and the holiday season. So we’re also happy to calculate your pricing estimate over the phone, set up an appointment for us to install your lights, and then decorate your residential or commercial property with high-quality, beautiful LED lights.

To receive a price quote over the phone OR to set up an in-person appointment with a designer, call No Fuss Lights at 281-809-7021 today. But hurry! Our schedule is starting to fill up, and before you know it, all of our openings could vanish into thin air – much like magic!

No Fuss Lights Helps HOAs Decorate for the Holidays, Too

No Fuss Lights is the Houston area’s top choice for complete holiday light installation and Christmas decoration services for both residences and commercial properties. But did you know that No Fuss Lights also serves homeowners’ associations as well?

If you represent an HOA and would like to have No Fuss Lights decorate certain areas, we would love to take care of all your needs. Based on our experience working with HOAs, we would need you to compile the following information in order for a proposal to be submitted:

Names of the streets, intersections, and other public or private areas that are to be decorated, along with addresses and photos
Any paperwork that must be filled out by you or us in order for No Fuss Lights to meet the requirements of becoming an approved vendor for your HOA
The contact information of both the HOA Board President and the HOA management company
A deposit prior to the start of Christmas light installation

If you are in need of references, you can contact Cane Island in Katy or Sugarwood in Sugar Land.

Because of the time it can take for us to get approval, we strongly recommend that you start the process immediately instead of waiting until closer to the holiday season to get everything finalized. Keep in mind that No Fuss Lights also guarantees our work, so that if you have a maintenance issue with your display, we will usually send a technician to fix it within 24 hours.

If you have any questions or you wish to get on our schedule, contact No Fuss Lights today by filling out this form or by calling 281-809-7021. We’d love to be a part of your holiday season!

Harvey Recovery and the 2017 Holiday Season

It’s been forty days and forty nights since a hurricane of Biblical proportions slammed into the Houston area and other parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast. Even though local leaders have finally begun issuing relief fund grants, the vast majority of south Texans who saw their property damaged (or destroyed) by Harvey are not even close to returning to normalcy.

We at No Fuss Lights were affected by Hurricane Harvey too, as were many of our neighbors and family members. So we completely understand what our current customers and others in the Houston area are going through. And with your attention focused primarily on insurance adjustors, cleanup efforts, contractor arrangements, and rebuilding projects, you’re probably not thinking much about the holiday season right now – much less decorating your home for Christmas.

With that in mind, we want our customers to know that No Fuss Lights will do everything in our power to work with you this holiday season. Whether it’s pushing back your decoration date, reducing the scope of your display, or putting together a more basic and lower-budget design plan, we’re happy to accommodate your needs as much as possible.

If you aren’t a No Fuss Lights customer, please know that we did survive Harvey and we are open for business this holiday season. So feel free to give us a call today at 281-809-7021 for a free quote, or fill out our contact form here.

And no matter who you are, please keep in mind that everyone at No Fuss Lights is keeping you in our thoughts and prayers as you continue to rebuild, recover, and rebound after our state’s worst hurricane in decades. After all, it’s our Houston values of resilience, helpfulness, and selflessness that will get us through this calamity together.