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One thing regarding the Malibu series at Home Depot.
When and if you do an installation using fixtures from the Depot. Neighbors will be copying.........cause they can get the same thing and do it themselves.........
Case in point.
I began doing lighting some 15 years ago......using the Toro varifocus kits.....did a couple lighting installs with design work, then the lighting end of it dried up untill 3 summers ago.
3 summers ago I threw a huge surprise birthday party for my dads 80th......family and friends from all over the country attended.....party was not at my house......but I knew that family would be spending a few days, so I needed to do something special and extend our use of the yard after dark.
I researched......Kichler and other high priced fixtures was a bit out of reach for my purposes. I not only wanted to light up the front and backyards, I also wanted to have a display or a show room for various lighting use and technigues.
What I ended up setting up was 4 - 300 watt lines in the back and 2 - 300 watt lines in the front......All Intermatic and fixtures....20 watt spots.....50 watt spots........11 and 18 watt lanterns, bolards. The end result was a heck of alot of lights and for the amount of lights used.....it does look nice.........Many, many comments of approval.
Well..........here's what began to happen 2 summers ago. 2 homes around the corner from me installed there own lighting......same stuff I used from Home Depot, though their layout sucks......but that is not the point. Point is.........they found the same products I used from Home Depot and did it themselves.
Last summer, 2 homes on my street and a couple others on the surrounding streets installed their own systems, again using the same products I used from Home Depot. This summer another on my street installed their own. None of what I have seen them do realy looks all that great. But that is not the point here...........point is.........if you display or demo products that homeowners can get at Home Depot or Lowes.......they will more than likely, go themselves to Lowes or Depot and do it themselves.
Where I live...........is middle and upper middle class........all can afford to pay me to do a lighting installation........even if the project was $2k or more using Kichler and the like units. But they didn't.........cause of what I used and they just copied what I used. And lets face it........landscape lighting is relatively easy to install.........so these homeowners do some of their own DIY projects.
So now what I am contemplating is................Change over the light fixtures from Home Depot stuff to the better and more expensive units like Kichler and others similar manufacturers. Of course when and If I do the change over........I would be using less light fixtures........which is fine with me.
Oh and just last week.........I ran a 100 watt line down the other side of my driveway.......once again using the Intermatic Malibu series Lanterns and a wall wash fixture to light up my Cannas
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