Indoor spaces

Take a look at where the electrical outlets are, says Bob Pranga, owner of holiday design company Dr. Christmas in Los Angeles. Wandering cords will diminish the look and present a potential hazard. Then determine the focal point of the room, he says. Any lighting should complement it.

For example, a foyer with a fantastic chandelier should keep the chandelier as the focus, Pranga says. Lighting should be set up symmetrically around it. “Do something even and outline the existing architecture,” he says. “That makes it feel warm.”

Indoor lighting acts more as an accessory to other holiday decorations than as the primary attraction, Pranga says. He suggests combining some sort of greenery with the lights, such as garlands or wreaths, to hide the cords. “Just stringing up lights in your house, unless you really want that frat house look, doesn’t give it much charm,” he says. “You end up scotch taping them to the walls.”

While LED lights save power for complex outdoor displays, they tend to look too harsh for indoors, Pranga says. “They make your room look like a black light palace.” Use incandescent lights instead for a warm and cozy ambiance.

Christmas tree

Similar to decorating an outdoor tree, wrap lights through branches rather than around the Christmas tree to add a nice depth, says Carolyn Horten, owner of design group Christmas Holiday Specialists in southern California.

Use the same tactic of dividing the tree into three triangle sections and working from the top down. The method not only makes the tree look full, it helps with damage control, she says. “It’s really easy to control blowouts that way,” Horten says. To prevent fuse blow-outs all together, don’t use more than three or four strands, and run an extension cord along the trunk, she says. Use a remote-powered or stepon-step-off power strip at the bottom to simplify turning the tree lights on and off.

Horten recommends using strands with 100 lights per foot. “It just adds a really nice ambiance,” she says.

But don’t be afraid to accent the tree with a unique light size or color, using mini-lights further into the tree.

Traditional trees with lots of sentimental ornaments that range in color will pop with a mix of clear and colored lights.

“You can definitely mix up the lights,” Horten says. “It sounds weird.

But it looks nice.”