Starting to roll

Not long after that first job I was introduced to someone with a lighting store.  This man could sell me the lighting equipment I needed and he also knew people who were in the market for landscape lighting.  He on the other hand had no idea about lighting himself.  He set up an appointment with a custom home builder who only built large luxury homes.  When I learned about the appointment I had a uniform shirt created for me so I could look the part.  If I was going to meet a connection like this, I knew that I had to make a good impression.  Until this point I was just wearing “work cloths”, jeans and a collared shirt.

Well, that meeting was a success which opened up several doors for large scale lighting projects in a very high end sub division just north of Austin, TX.  I’ll get into more of those projects at a later time.  The first home we accented in this neighborhood was pretty small but this was our second project (the photo).  As you can see, it was pretty impressive.  This is one of our best clients who has changed things up a few times since the original installation and we also take care of their Christmas lighting.  For Christmas, we outline their entire roofline (800’) with LED lights.  We are able to all of that plus a whole lot more on a single electrical outlet.  I’m getting a little ahead of myself though and I’ll cover holiday lighting later on as well.

If you haven’t visited our website yet, please do.  www.night-scenes.com  .

Till next time,

Getting to it!

After learning the basics it was time to get my feet wet and start doing some real lighting.  I contacted my previous electrical clients to let them know that I was providing a new service and would love to enhance their properties.  Since I had great relationships with my clients, it wasn’t long before I had projects to do.

My first real lighting job was located in Kingsland, on the Llano river arm of lake LBJ.  It was a small project with some down lights that I placed in a pecan tree, some path lights along a walkway that led to a storage shed and then a few up lights for some trees.  This was a great learning experience. 

I learned that I really needed a 30’ extension ladder if I were going to be installing lighting in trees.  This allowed for a softer light on the ground and more shadows from the limbs of the trees.  I also learned about glare and path light placement!!  I make a special point to let clients know what to look for in a good path light and I try to choose the fixture for my clients.  We do NOT want to use fixtures with glass lenses that allow viewing of the light source.  We also try to NOT place path lights in turf areas.  These lessons were huge and I’m very glad that I learned them early on.

On another note, as this blog continues I will be featuring some of our projects.  I’m sure that you will enjoy reading about some of the projects that we do and how we go about designing and installing them.  I’ll also include photos of these projects.  I’ll begin this with projects that we have already completed so check back often because your project may be the next one that we feature.

God bless.

The beginning part II

So to continue my little story, I spent a lot of time studying low voltage lighting and low voltage electrical theory. Although I was well educated in household electrical theory, low voltage was a whole new animal with much less room for error. This is why most electricians don't do so well in the field of low voltage lighting. I'll get into this in greater detail later.

I learned about all of the different ways to allow equal electrical distribution to each of the light fixtures. I'm sure that almost everyone has seen that home improvement lighting system with some lights that are quite bright and others that are very dim. This is due to poor electrical distribution and the reason I really wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting into and how to "do it right".

I read many online forums, articles, books, and anything else I could find. I also ran several tests and tried several techniques to make certain that when I did start installing, my systems would be top notch, mechanically.

Next came choosing the fixtures that I would use. In my readings I learned that there were many lighting manufacturers. I had no idea but there are hundreds of landscape lighting manufacturers and they range from great to the stuff that is found at the box stores and yes, the box store stuff is nothing but a waste of money.

I contacted Hadco, FX, Kichler and a couple of others. Kichler was the only one that actually talked to me. They were very helpful to me is getting my website up and running, allowing me to use some photos since I didn't have any of my own yet. They also had a huge selection of quality products.

Currently I use Kichler, Vista, CAST, HK, Hunza, Hadco and many others, depending on the project and fixture required for a task.

More later.

The beginning

OK, so I'm starting this blog with no idea as to what I am doing. I guess I'll start with a quick introduction.

I won't bother with my name and such because those things are included in my profile. Instead I will focus on how I got into lighting.

I was a night club disc jockey for several years and needed something to supplement my income. I had a friend who was an electrician and a heating/ac guy and he offered me a part time job. This was great, I was able to make a little more money and learn a trade at the same time. I became very interested in becoming an electrician and learned the trade pretty quickly (I think). After a few years of working with my friend I gave up the DJ thing (a total of 20 years in that business) and focused solely on electrical work. A couple of years later my friend took me aside and told me that he could no longer keep me on but would use me as a sub contractor if I were to go it alone and that is where the fun began.

I went home from that meeting and told my wonderful bride that I was no longer employed and would be starting my own electrical contractor business. The birth of PRG Ventures was here!! We created business cards and told all of my friends that I was available for hire. This went pretty well for awhile but it became quite evident that there were too many electricians in my small town and no one could make a decent living. At about this same time, one of my clients asked me if I would please "do some lighting" in a small area of his yard where he and his wife liked to sit and enjoy a glass of wine in the evenings. I agreed to do the job although I had no idea as to what I should do. I looked at the area and had a few ideas so I went to the gettin' place and picked up some cheap lighting equipment and did the job. I went back that night, with my wife, daughter and mother in-law to see how it turned out and BOOM, I was hooked!! Although compared to the work we do today the job was "not good", it was great that night and it stirred an interest in me. I spent that weekend finding out everything I could regarding landscape lighting. I finally came out of my cave on Sunday evening telling my very supportive bride that I would be starting a landscape lighting company. Needless to say, she was not very enthusiastic about the idea but she was, as always, supportive.

Thus was born, NightScapes!! I joined the Low voltage Lighting Association of the Americas, went to Cleveland, Ohio to attend a lighting class offered by Kichler Lighting and put together a website and we were on our way.

I will get into more of this later on but I wanted to at least get started on this blog and thought that I may as well start with a little history.