Justin Rushin still remembers advice he received at the start of his venture into holiday decorating as owner of Christmas Decor of Pittsburgh.

“(The instructor) said one thing that really stuck in my mind: ‘You will never be able to look at a house the same and not think about how you would decorate it,’ ” Rushin said. “Whenever I look at a home, that’s the first thing I think of, what I would do with it to make it look its best for the holidays.”

Rushin’s Cheswick-based franchise location, a branch of the national Christmas Decor company, is one of 300 such franchises across the country and one of dozens of outdoor holiday lighting companies in Western Pennsylvania. Hiring a professional holiday lights company, he said, has become increasingly popular for homeowners and business owners looking to create a vibrant winter display.

“There’s tremendous demand. I would call it unmet demand,” Rushin said. “Although we have a small amount of availability (this year) because we started early, we’ve worked some seven-day weeks.”

Basics of the job

Rushin’s company works with approximately 50 sites during the holidays each year, ranging from Zelienople to Waynesburg. He describes the process of working with customers on their outdoor decorations as “very participatory.”

“Sometimes people follow my recommendations, and sometimes they want their own design. We’re very flexible with regards to that, but there are some key elements that work out really well,” Rushin said. “A ranch house is going to look different from a house with a very complicated roof. From roof to ground, we have different components to what we can put on a site.”

Working with a professional designer can give homeowners and business owners some peace of mind when it comes to decorating. Starting price tags can run upwards of $900 to $1,750, which typically includes installation, undecorating and maintenance of the lights that decorators bring to a property. Installers typically start putting up lights as early as the start of October to beat the cold.

“We provide ideas, customers bring ideas and we kind of pare it down from there,” said Michael Lewandowski, president of L&L Ventures, which owns the outdoor decorating company Pittsburgh Socialights in Heidelberg. “It really just depends on your house and what you want done. Everything’s custom built for a home.”

Lewandowski’s company decorates about 500 properties each year for the holidays, he said.

“Surprisingly, through the whole pandemic, we saw our lighting business really uptick and increase,” he said. “I think there’s a heavier sense of value on holidays now and family getting together.”

Leaving it to the pros

Convenience can attract customers to outdoor decorating companies, but the price isn’t within everyone’s budget.

Alex Wilkins of Revive Landscaping in Ligonier said there has been increased interest in hiring light installers, but not everyone is onboard. His average project costs the customer about $1,000.

“It is starting to pick up,” he said. “It is becoming popular, especially for people who don’t want to get on their roof, but it is a high-ticket service, so it’s kind of hard to close a deal.”

Wilkins entered the holiday light business this year, but he has run a landscaping business for several years.

“We only have 12 customers right now, but we will have more next year,” he said. “We run with their idea and suggest things, and we provide the lights. We maintenance them, so if anything would come loose or go out, we would be there within a 24-hour call to fix anything, and we take them down and store them.”

Nick Nutter of Superior Holiday Lighting in West Newton said the safety risks of decorating a home often lead customers to seek out a professional.

“A lot of these roofs are at such a steep pitch anymore that a lot of customers don’t have the ladder to get on top of their roof, much less the safety equipment to get on their roof and actually hang these without the fear of falling off,” Nutter said.

Nutter’s crew typically hangs lights by climbing on a home’s roof. Ladders actually can be riskier for decorators, he said.

“A lot of the time, the ground is uneven, so we’d have to use ladder stabilizers. There’s a lot more risk of falling off the ladder or the ladder itself slipping,” he said.

Business models

Smaller holiday decoration company owners often run other businesses during the rest of the year. During the offseason, Rushin runs an outdoor pool company.

For Nutter, running multiple businesses has helped him find customers through the past two pandemic years.

“It really didn’t slow down for us. If anything, it actually picked up,” Nutter said. “I actually own an exterior cleaning business, and we saw an increase in sales throughout the pandemic. People are home a lot more now, and they want to do more things around their house now that they’re there more. I think that’s really helped a lot of the service-based businesses.”

Nutter’s company works with about 100 houses each holiday season. One of his customers, Ahava Flick of Latrobe, found his light installation business through being a customer of Nutter’s exterior cleaning company.

“We own a construction business, so we’ve been working with them for probably a year now,” said Flick, who used Nutter’s light installation service for the first time this year. “We had our home decorated last year by a different company, but I wanted to give them the business.”

The convenience of working with a professional lighting company is a big part of the appeal for Flick.

“Being business owners, we just don’t have the time, so it’s a really beneficial service to us. They also come and maintain it, so if something falls down off of the roof line, they will come back and fix it,” she said. “The other thing they do is come and take them down, which is convenient because it is cold. They pack it away. The expense of buying all of those lights is not cheap.”

For Frank Kapr of Frank Kapr Funeral Home in Scottdale, professional holiday decorating has been worth the price. Kapr has used the company Pittsburgh Christmas Lights to decorate his building for the past two years.

“I don’t have to worry about it,” Kapr said. “That saved a lot of expense on my behalf, plus time.”

Kapr said he especially appreciates the company’s ability to keep up with damaged lightbulbs.

“It’s a big funeral home, and they did an awful lot for us,” he said. “They put the larger lights in, and that’s what I like. At night time, it really lights everything up. We like it, we enjoy it, and we appreciate what they’ve done for us so far.”

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