Christmas Light Installation in Ferguson, Missouri

Two eras on the same map

Ferguson is older than most of North County, and the blocks near the depot and along Florissant Road show it — Victorian and craftsman houses with deep wraparound porches, turned columns, gabled dormers and mature trees over the street. Push out from that core and the town turns over to solid post-war housing: brick ranches, capes and modest two-stories on grid streets with tidy front yards.

Those two kinds of house want opposite designs. On an old Ferguson porch, the porch is the display: garland along the rail, columns wrapped, the entry framed, and only a light trace on the porch roof and main gable above it. On a post-war ranch the roofline does the work, because the eave is low, straight and easy to make perfect.

The trees are the other local factor. Old Ferguson has a heavy canopy over most of its streets, which means a roofline can disappear behind branches by the time the leaves are down and the lights go up. We check what actually reads from the sidewalk before deciding how much of the display belongs up high.

The parts that matter

• Porch rail and columns garlanded or wrapped, at the height that reads from the pavement
• Gable and porch-roof runs traced cleanly, not stretched around every jog in the trim
• Old wood trim protected — clips chosen for what is actually on the edge, nothing screwed in
• Ranch eaves done fast and straight, which keeps the price where it should be
• Wreaths hung plumb, which sounds obvious and is the thing most often got wrong

Ferguson, Florissant, Hazelwood and Overland are all on the same North County route for us, so a repair call in December does not turn into a wait. Install in October and November, takedown and labeled storage in January. Free quote — (636) 244-6125.