How to put up lights like a pro
Riel Roussopoulos put his theatrical lighting background to good use decking out Vancouver homes at Christmas.
Lucy Hyslop
Special to the Sun
Friday, December 22, 2006
In a land where snow is a novelty and Christmas equals beach, barbecue and baking sunshine, Australian transplant Kate Dunstan admits wintering in dank Vancouver was a shock. Even the city's tradition for installing lights on houses and gardens seemed strange.
"It was really foreign to us seeing all the lights in Vancouver when we first came here two and a half years ago," she says. "We never had any call for lights in Melbourne because Christmas is obviously in the summer there and it just doesn't get dark till nine or 10 o'clock."
Now having endured "all these cold, dark winter nights" she is a convert, calling on the services of local firm We Put Up Lights. In a few hours her 5,000 square-foot Dunbar home was transformed with smart red lights. "I love them," she explains. "Christmas just makes sense in this hemisphere."
After years of neighbours and friends admiring the lights on his home in Strathcona and asking for his design tips, Riel Roussopoulos decided to establish the light installation firm four years ago. He started with $1,000 worth of flyers and his first commission was a $3,200 job on the North Shore. As well as working on smaller homes with high roofs or awkward nooks and commercial spaces, his Tour de Noel mainly focuses on large high-end houses. His team is currently involved in decking out a 10,000-square-foot West Vancouver home. "It's certainly a production -- with 80-foot cranes and lifts," says Roussopoulos, who majored in lighting in his theatre degree from Bishop's University in Quebec.
"There are people who just throw up lights and there are people who do it carefully and with a design-oriented flair," he says. "People really want to be told what works and what will look nice; I realized early on in the business that people don't necessarily know what looks good or what they actually want, which is where the design part comes in to play."
For Kate Dunstan the firm advised on distinctive red LED lights, for which she paid just under $1,000, because "my husband and I just could not agree on the colour."
"We called them because we just didn't know how to do the lights and we also wanted it done professionally because it is a lot safer especially with all the bad weather recently," she adds.
Roussopoulos also finds that people who are time-poor, the curse of the 21st century, often make contact. "Time is a major factor for people who own large homes," he explains. "People do not have the time to put up all the lights needed to decorate their house. Small homes are not usually such a big deal, although they can be if you want to put lights up on peaks and the such like. People who do it, usually like to do it well, so may call us in because of the logistics of reaching certain spots."
Roussopoulos, whose previous incarnation was as DJ Riel ("I had a life organizing lights and laser at nightclubs and events before I realized I wanted to be in bed before midnight every now and then"), charges between 60 cents to $4 a foot depending on the difficulties of the job. "If there are some crazy peaks and we're getting into repelling gear, you're going to be looking at the higher prices," he says.
The expert offers these trade tips for homeowners. "Clips are definitely our secret weapon," he explains. "They are critical and make the difference between something that looking really professional and amateur."
He adds that being tidy is also important. "Hide power cords and keep the lights where they are supposed to be seen; and not where they aren't," says Roussopoulos. "The typical amateur job has them trailing off where they weren't supposed to be because they are too long for the roof or whatever . . . tuck them out of sight, basically, don't leave them hanging or dumped on the ground . . . It is one of my pet peeves."
Clearly being critical of other people's lights is an occupational hazard. "I am horribly catty about other people's," he endearingly confesses, "and the funniest thing is that even my seven-year-old daughter can be critical about other people's lights too."
So what are this season's colours? Blue is apparently a "little passe now" but multis are always in and white is "just classic." And which lights make his top three downtown this year? The tree on Pacific; the Pan Pacific; and the Harbour Centre. "And we didn't design any of them," he quips.
WePutUpLights.com also uses energy-saving LED lights. "A lot of our clients do not need to worry about their bills, but in terms of power conservation, it is always a good thing," he says. "It's important not to waste energy and modern LED lights burn one per cent of the hydro than the old nine-watt bulbs."
The firm's service includes bringing down the lights as well. For Kate Dunstan, however, that won't be any day soon. "We just think they are so pretty that we're really keen to leave them up as long as possible," she says, "especially as it's so dark here in the winter."
So the future's bright for adults, but even brighter for children. "My best quote ever was from an excited five-year-old girl whose house we had just lit up, who said: 'Santa won't miss us now,'" says Roussopoulos. "It was the cutest."
We Put Up Lights can be reached on 604-254-0156 or at www.WePutUpLights.com
Lucy Hyslop is a Vancouver freelance writer.