Make your home look like a million bucks with custom holiday lighting décor from Brite Ideas.
The festive holiday season is just around the corner. Sooner than you think, it will be time to break out those tried and true holiday decorations. But before you spend precious hours haphazardly festooning your abode with colored lights, you might want to take a minute to consider hiring a professional this year says Pete Galantic, owner of Lawn Medic, a lawn service business located in the Haddon Heights area.
In addition to operating Lawn Medic, Galantic is also an authorized distributor for Brite Ideas decorating, a custom holiday lighting business. “I started running the Brite Ideas business about five years ago,” says Galantic whose son also helps out with both businesses. “Lawn care is seasonal, so with Brite Ideas I can keep my employees on the payroll over the winter and they don’t have to collect unemployment [benefits].”
“Our custom holiday lighting is a real time saver for anyone who loves to decorate their home for the holidays, but leads a busy lifestyle and doesn’t want the added stress of climbing a ladder to string up lights around the house,” says Galantic.
Brite Ideas focuses on decorating the home itself and not on the landscaping, which Galantic says most homeowners can easily do themselves. "We take care of everything from installation to maintenance to take down and storage. We also check lights annually and replace them as needed.”
Stress-free holiday decorating
Decorating your house couldn’t be easier says Galantic. “The first step is to schedule a consultation. We take a photo of the house and the customer picks out which products to use from our catalog.” Although every house design is different depending on what the customer wants, Galantic says that white lights outsell colored lights by a nine to one margin.
“Next, we add the customer to the schedule and that’s it,” he says, adding that the window of opportunity for homeowners is short so they should call earlier rather than later to make sure they get on the schedule. “We start installing lights in early November and finish [installing them] by December 10, weather permitting,” says Galantic. “Lights are usually taken down right after New Year’s.
“Repeat customers have it even easier,” he says. “All the homeowner has to do is pick up the phone and get put on the schedule.”
That’s exactly what Angela Antenucci of Deptford does every year. A devoted customer since 2006, Antenucci, who favors the classic look of the snowflake theme, has nothing but good things to say about Brite Ideas. “I love using Brite Ideas. The crews are easy to work with and it’s convenient,” says Antenucci. “All you do is pick out what you want from the catalog and they do the rest. It saves me time and it looks fabulous.”
Starbursts, snowflakes, and gingerbread
“Decorative lighting can make a $300,000 house look like a $1 million home,” says Galantic. “Our most popular themes are probably snowflakes and icicles, but we will do anything the customer wants from simple starbursts to elaborate gingerbread.” Galantic says that most customers spend about $1500 the first year and $600 to $700 in subsequent years, but it’s possible to spend as little as $600 the first year for a more simple design. “The price is based on the type of design, number of lights and size of the home,” he says adding that these are not your average home and garden store variety lights.
What about the maximum amount? “The sky is the limit,” says Galantic with a chuckle mentioning one homeowner who thought nothing of spending $7000 in overnight shipping costs alone.
Energy saving LED lighting
One might think that all those lights would cost customers a fortune in their energy bill, but Galantic says that isn’t the case at all. “We use state of the art LED (light emitting diode) lights that use 90 percent less energy.”
“I would recommend them to anyone”
Michelle Gurcik is another happy customer. “We used Brite Ideas when we lived in our old house and when we moved to our new house in Williamstown we continued using their service,” she says. “I like that it’s a family business with a good reputation. I would recommend them to anyone. One year there was a windstorm that caused a problem with the lights. All I had to do was pick up the phone and the crew was out the next day to fix the problem. That’s what I call service.”
For more information about Brite Ideas visit their website LawnMedicLLC.com, click on “Services”. To schedule a consultation with Pete Galantic call (800) 656-5296.
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Family, Volume 1, Issue 9 (November, 2010).
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