Hi all!  This is Patrick’s wife Laura.  Although our business is a part of the nation’s largest network of outdoor lighting specialists, our franchise: Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Northern Virginia is locally owned and operated, as well as family-run.  As you other small business owners know, a lot of time and effort goes into building your own business and running it.  My husband has a true talent and eye for lighting design and installation and I am happy to assist with some of the behind-the-scenes parts of the business.  I like to tell people that I actually “married” into the lighting business.  Patrick has been doing lighting for the past 10 years, and when we got married almost 4 years ago, I admittedly did not know much about lighting.  I remember Patrick and I driving around in our car one night to look at one of his lighting installations in a neighborhood in Clifton, Virginia, and I saw a different house just down the road that had outdoor lighting done by some contractor with little or no training, or perhaps a DIY homeowner who was clueless.  Not knowing much about lighting, I still immediately knew that this other lighting job just didn’t look right.  My comment to my husband was it looked like a “bad haircut!”  Now by that, I meant, there were sporadic beams of light on the home facade, not giving it an even “wash” of light but an uneven look; some strokes of light shining high up on the house, others very low, and large gaps of the home facade dark and bare.  Not artistic, just sloppy.  The light itself was not white, but a bluish color in parts and grey in other parts; simply inconsistent.  It just made me think of a bad haircut — a barber had used a razor for one section, left other parts long, and then just got scissor-happy with the rest.  

Bad Haircut

There was no planning, no vision, and probably poor products that contributed to this overall “sad” look.  The lights on this house actually gave it a spooky feel.  Perhaps good for Halloween, but I’m guessing it was not the effect that the homeowner had hoped it would give.

So as the Lighting Guy’s wife, I’ve learned a few things over the years besides how to point out, what I like to call, a “bad hair cut” lighting job.  I look forward to sharing some of my findings in our blog, as well as talking about being part of a family-owned and operated business, and giving recommendations on fun lighting/electricity-related, kid-friendly projects and activities that are here in the Northern Virginia and DC Metro area.  And lastly, I can’t help but include a photo of our son a few months after he was born (he’s now 2), with a great inscription on his onesie: “I LIGHT up daddy, he LIGHTS up everyone else!”.

I LIGHT up daddy, he LIGHTS up everyone else!