Lighting acreage is a different problem from lighting a street. The house is set back, often behind trees, and reached down a long drive, so the display has to work at distance rather than up close. We design for the approach as much as the roofline. Our base is in Horseshoe Valley, so this is home turf.
Takes about a minute. No obligation.
On a suburban street the house sits fifteen metres from the pavement and the eaves are the entire display. That works, because everyone seeing it is close to it. Move the same house a hundred metres back behind a stand of maples and the single line of light along the roof reads as a faint smudge through the branches, if it reads at all.
The Oro-Medonte properties that genuinely look good in December are the ones that use the whole approach. The drive lit down both sides, a couple of mature trunks wrapped near the turn, then the house picked out at the end of it. The eaves are the last thing you see rather than the only thing.
That is the conversation we would rather have when quoting. If you have a long drive and a fixed budget, putting a third of it on the approach will do more for the result than putting all of it on the roof, and we will say so.
Higher than the county average, because the properties are bigger and there is usually more than a roofline involved. Where most township installs land for a full season:
One number covers everything: lights, design, install, any repairs during the season, takedown in January and storage until next winter. No separate takedown invoice in the new year. No travel charge on any line or sideroad in the township.
Everyone here should book earlier than the county generally does, and it is a practical point rather than a sales one. Running lighting down a long gravel drive is straightforward in late October and awkward once the ground is frozen and rutted. The higher ground around Horseshoe Valley and Sugarbush gets there well before the Lake Simcoe shoreline does.
The same applies to the roof. Clips seat properly on a dry October roof and fight you on a frozen December one, and a clip that never seated right is the section that pulls loose in January.
Real Oro-Medonte properties, and what the design actually went into.
Large home with three roof lines set well back off the road. Roofline alone would have been lost at that distance, so the budget went across the eaves, two wrapped maples flanking the drive, and the entrance columns. The effect starts at the road rather than at the house.
Two-storey on the Lake Simcoe side, straightforward roof and garage return, plus shrubs either side of the front door. One of the quicker installs in the township, and now a rebook every year in the same October week.
Property with a long treed driveway and no view of the house from the road at all. Almost the whole design went into the approach: the drive lit down both sides, the trunks nearest the turn wrapped, and the house itself picked out simply at the end of it.
On a rural property it is worth more than usual to get everything done on one trip. Gutters cleared before freeze-up and lights up on the same dry October day, one crew coming up the driveway once instead of twice.
Real Google reviews from across Simcoe County and Muskoka. We run on referrals from the people we have already worked for.
“Home Service Hunks did an amazing job putting up and taking down my Christmas lights this year. The entire process was smooth, professional, and stress-free from start to finish. Their team was friendly, showed up on time, and made the whole house look incredible for the holidays.”
“I’ve used Home Service Hunks for window cleaning, gutter cleaning, and Christmas light installation, and every experience has been excellent. The team is professional, reliable, and always does high-quality work. They show up on time, work efficiently, and make the whole process easy. The window cleaning left our home looking noticeably brighter, the gutters were completely cleared out and flowing properly, and the Christmas light installation made the house look incredible for the holidays without any hassle on our end.”
“Mitch and Webster did an outstanding job - very thorough, honest and so kind - will definitely use them again !”
Most properties here land between $800 and $2,000 for the season, which is higher than the county average because the houses are bigger and there is usually more than a roofline involved. A standard two-storey in Shanty Bay or Hawkestone with roof and garage return is $800 to $1,200. Larger places around Horseshoe Valley or Sugarbush with multiple gables, a wrapped tree or two and some driveway lighting run $1,400 to $2,000 and up. One number covers lights, design, install, in-season repairs, January takedown and storage.
Because a roofline on its own does not do the job out here. On a suburban street the house is fifteen metres from the road and the eaves are the whole display. On acreage the house might be a hundred metres back behind trees, and at that distance a single line of light along the eaves reads as a faint smudge. The properties that actually look good use the trees and the approach as well, and that is more material and more time.
That is most of what we do in this township. A lit approach, a couple of wrapped mature trunks and then the house at the end of it is a far better result than three more runs along the roof. If you have a long drive, spending part of the budget on the way in rather than all of it on the eaves is usually the right call, and we will say so when we quote.
September or early October. Installs run from late October through the first week of December in booking order. Rural properties are worth booking early for a practical reason on top of that: we want to be putting lights up on your driveway before it is a sheet of ice, and the higher ground around Horseshoe Valley and Sugarbush freezes before the shoreline does.
Almost always, because commercial-grade LEDs draw very little. The thing we do check on a large rural install is how many circuits we are spread across and where the outdoor outlets actually are, since a long run of driveway lighting on one old exterior receptacle is worth planning rather than discovering. If a property genuinely needs another outlet we will tell you before install day, not on it.
A fair question, and people ask it. The honest answer is that on a rural property the display is for the people who live there and the people who come to visit, not for passing traffic. Turning down your own driveway in December is the moment it is for. Plenty of our Oro-Medonte customers cannot be seen from any road at all and rebook every year.
Call or text and we will go out and fix it, included, and you do not need to be home. That matters more here than in town, because a lot of these properties sit empty over the holidays and the owner does not want the one year they had lights installed to be the year half of them were dark while family were arriving.
Yes. We run Home Service Hunks out of Horseshoe Valley, which is in the township, and most of the crew lives within twenty minutes. There is no travel charge on any line or sideroad here because there is nothing to recover.
Installs run late October through early December in booking order, and the driveways up here freeze first. Booking now gets you a dry install day.
