Minneapolis gets dark before 4:30 in December and stays that way for months. One installed system gives you everyday warm white, holiday colors and scheduled security lighting, and the track disappears into a hundred-year-old roofline by day.
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From November to March this city is dark by the time most people get home, and it stays that way until spring. That is the real case for permanent lighting here and it has very little to do with December: a roofline traced in warm white makes your house readable from the street on an ordinary Tuesday in February.
The system goes up once. After that your holiday display, your everyday accent lighting and your scheduled security lighting all come from the same track, set from an app, with nobody on a ladder in the cold.
We build every light in the track as its own pixel. Our app can give each one a separate color and brightness, so a calm warm-white outline on a February weeknight and a full-color pattern for a party both come from the very same hardware.
Most evenings you will probably leave it on true 3000K warm white. Think of the gentle, golden tone of a table lamp, not the bluish glare of bargain LEDs. Switch to full RGBW (red, green, blue and a separate white channel) and you have 16 million colors to pick from. The lights sit 10 inches apart on every house we do.
Our Signature system runs on 48 volts, which keeps brightness steady from one end of the run to the other. On a house with a porch roof and a couple of dormers, the light at the far corner matches the one closest to the control box.
The app connects over Bluetooth and WiFi and never charges a monthly fee. A sunset-to-sunrise schedule moves with the real sunset, so when it gets dark before 4:30 in December, the roofline is already on as you pull in. Save favorite looks as scenes for holidays, game day or a week out of town, and pick out single lights where your layout allows. We set the whole thing up on your phone before our crew leaves.
Tap a scene, and the roofline follows.
Nearly everyone asks the same thing first: will the house look like the holiday lights never came down? No. Seeing a finished install in daylight is usually what wins people over.
We fasten a slim track up under the eave, screwed into your soffit (the flat surface beneath the overhang), where the roof already throws a shadow. On an older Minneapolis home with gables, dormers and a porch roof, we plan that line at every transition, and we never attach anything to your gutters or shingles.
Then we match the track color to your trim. Any color with an RAL code works (RAL is the numbered color standard that paint and trim makers share), so dark green, deep brown, cream and the aluminum trim wrap you see on so many houses here all get a true match. The control box stays tucked away in your garage.
On a stucco house with very little trim, the line we pick matters more than the color, so we follow the natural shadow. From the sidewalk you see the house, not the hardware. After dark, it does whatever you tell it to.
One house, one evening, lights off and on. Drag to compare.
You are buying something meant to stay up through every freeze and thaw for years, so we put the coverage in writing at three levels. It protects the lights you see each night and the install work behind them.
Lifetime
Lights covered for life
If an LED has a manufacturing defect, we cover it for as long as the system is yours.
10 Years
System covered for a decade
Track, power supply, controller and wiring: everything that carries the lights stays protected for ten years.
5 Years
Labor and materials included
For five years, parts, labor and the trip out to your house are all covered, and our own crew handles it.
Nothing rushed. We get the design right, install it cleanly, and hand you the controls before we pack up.
We come to the house, measure every stretch of roofline, and settle how the track handles each gable, dormer and porch roof. We match the track to your trim, check height while we are there, and give you a written quote with an exact price.
Our crew screws the color-matched track into the soffit along the lines you approved, and we only haul in a lift if your house truly needs one. For power, the control box goes on an outlet in your garage, typically the one up on the ceiling beside the door opener, so there is nothing to rewire, even on a hundred-year-old house.
Before leaving, we get the app running on your phone, build a few starter scenes and set a sunset-to-sunrise schedule. Then you try dimming, changing colors and switching scenes while we watch.
We register your warranty, give you the written terms, and go through each scene with you once it is dark, which in a Minneapolis winter is not a long wait. We stay until running it feels easy.
Most homeowners are choosing among three things: hauling out a bin of store lights each fall, paying a crew to hang and remove them every season, or installing a system once. On a tall house with a narrow side yard, those ladder trips add up fast. Here is how the three stack up over the years.
Installed once, lit all year.
Our Signature 48-volt system, screwed into the soffit and matched to your trim color. Everyday accent light, holiday scenes and team colors all run from one app, with no monthly fee.
Cheap to buy, costly in effort.
Low price at the store, but you pay in Saturdays. It makes sense if you light up for one holiday and you are comfortable on a ladder in the cold.
Our crew hangs it, you enjoy it.
We put your holiday lights up each season and take them down when it is over. It suits you if you want a display but would rather keep your feet on the ground.
Three Options. One Honest Answer.
Permanent lighting costs more on day one and less every year after. If you only want lights up for the holidays and down by New Year, we will point you to our seasonal holiday lighting service instead, because that is the better fit.
We price by the linear footage of track plus the controller and power components. On the older housing stock here the number is driven by how broken-up your roofline is: a house with a porch roof, two dormers and a detached garage carries far more track than its square footage suggests.
The design consult is free and our quote is firm before we order anything.
Raise it while we are scoping: if your gutters need clearing or the siding wants a wash, we would rather do that first, and you can book it on the same visit. Nobody wants new track screwed into a soffit that is about to be washed.
Minneapolis sits far enough north that the sun is down before 4:30 in mid-December, and the stretch from November through March is genuinely dark by the time most people get home.
That is the real argument for permanent lighting here, and it has fairly little to do with the holidays. A roofline traced in warm white makes a house readable from the street on a January evening, throws usable light onto the front walk and steps, and does it on a schedule rather than a switch somebody forgets.
The other argument is the ladder. On a Minneapolis two-and-a-half story, and there are plenty in Kenwood, Lowry Hill, Tangletown and Bryn Mawr, putting up holiday lights means an extension ladder on frozen, uneven ground in an eight-foot side yard, in November. Then again in January to take them down. Houses that tall are routine work for our crew, and we bring a lift when a roofline calls for one.
A few of the looks our customers run on their homes.
A soft warm-white outline that makes the house look finished after dark, which is how most owners run it most nights.
One tap switches the whole roofline to red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, then back to warm white when the holiday is over.
Purple and gold for game day, set from the app in seconds, with no strings to hang and nothing to take down after.
A modern suburban house has one long straight roofline run, and this is an easy job. An older Minneapolis home does not. The housing stock here is gables, dormers, a porch roof at a different pitch, deep eaves with exposed rafter tails, and on the older homes in Kenwood and Lowry Hill, rooflines that curve and step.
Every one of those transitions is a decision about where the track goes, and getting them wrong is what makes a system look bolted on rather than built in. That is why we walk the elevation with you and agree the run lines before anything is ordered, rather than quoting off a photo.
Color matching matters just as much on these houses. Minneapolis trim runs to dark greens, deep browns, cream, and the aluminum trim wrap that went onto half the city in the 1970s and 80s. We match the track to whatever you actually have, working from the RAL code for that color, so a deep green gets the same true match as white.
Power is simpler than most owners here expect, whatever the age of the house. The control box plugs in inside your garage, usually at the ceiling outlet the door opener runs on, so it stays out of the way all year. We confirm the spot when we walk your house.
ReviewsA good install shows clean, even lines, so you can judge ours from the sidewalk. Walk out and look once we have packed up. If a run of track is crooked, the spacing looks off, or anything else seems wrong, let us know within 72 hours and we will return and fix it at no charge.
See Recent Project ResultsA full roofline system is a real investment, and it is often easier to size up as a monthly amount than as one check.
We offer 0% interest financing through Klarna. You get the whole system installed now and pay it off over time with no interest added.
We cover the Klarna option during your free design consultation, alongside the firm quote for your home, so everything is laid out before you decide.
0% Interest Financing
We install the whole system now, and you pay for it over time with Klarna.
Financing through Klarna is subject to approval.
Wally's Home Services covers Minneapolis and the surrounding Hennepin County area. We are one local company, not a franchise or a dealer network, so the people who quote your job are the people who do it and the people you call afterward.
Just outside Minneapolis? We also cover St. Louis Park, Edina, St. Paul.
Straight answers so you know what you are booking. If your question is not here, call and ask.
We price by the linear foot of roofline plus a one-time controller. On older homes here, the shape of the roof matters more than the size of the house. A porch roof, two dormers and a detached garage add a lot of track. We measure at a free on-site consultation and give you a firm price before we order anything.
For a lot of homes here, yes. It is dark before 4:30 in December, and it stays dark early through March. So most of our customers run warm white on ordinary weeknights, not just at Christmas. You also stop hauling a ladder across a frozen side yard every November.
They plug in, and you do not need an outdoor outlet. Our control box goes on an outlet inside your garage. Usually that is the ceiling outlet your garage door opener uses. We do not wire anything into the old circuits of the house, even on a hundred-year-old home.
The track goes in the soffit under each eave, where the roof already casts a shadow. On an older home, every gable, dormer and porch roof is a choice about where a run starts and stops. We walk the house with you and agree on those lines before we order anything.
Yes. Plenty of Minneapolis houses got aluminum wrap on their trim in the 1970s and 80s. We match the track to any trim color with an RAL code, wrap or painted wood. Dark green, deep brown and cream all get a true match too.
Not for us. We install on homes up to three stories as routine work. Our crew brings a lift only when a roofline needs one. We check the height at your consultation, so it is part of your quote and never a surprise on install day.
We build them to stay up for good. Your LEDs carry a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. The track, power supply, controller and wiring have 10 years of coverage. On top of that, we cover labor and materials for 5 years.
Yes. We fasten the track with screws, never tape or glue, so it can come off. If you ever take it down, expect small screw holes in the soffit.
Then we make it right, free of charge. Walk the property after we are done, and if anything falls short, call us at (612) 216-7894 within 72 hours. We come back and fix it at no cost to you. No invoice, no argument, no fine print. That is the Wally's Worry-Free Guarantee.
