From yuletide to summer time, string lights are big

Stacy Stallbaumer’s patio faces north, and it never felt cozy and inviting. It was just a space. Then she hired interior designer Karen Oatman of K. Oatman Design in Overland Park.

“She took away my blah patio and she transformed it,” said Stallbaumer, a former Realtor turned mortgage processor based in Leawood. “I don’t get a lot of daylight and I knew I needed something. I just didn’t know what.”

What made all the difference? String lights.

Ten years ago, string lights were what you put on your Christmas tree, cursing the knotty wires and searching endlessly for that one dead bulb. Maybe you put them up in your college dorm room.

Now string lights are being used to give weddings a romantic glow, give a lamp a funky twist and turn a backyard from a space into a sanctuary. And every retailer that has anything to do with home decorating sells decorative string lights.

For Stallbaumer’s space, Oatman used little papier-mache lantern lights around the patio, swagging them slightly instead of hanging them in straight lines.

She also showed Stallbaumer how to add a holiday touch to her kitchen by putting lights above the cabinets and hiding the cord.

“I always thought of string lights in the kitchen as something tacky, but I didn’t want to take these down,” Stallbaumer said.

Oatman loves string lights because they’re so adaptable and inexpensive. She uses them in gardens and bedrooms and as art pieces. Her workspace in her basement is surrounded by string lights and it feels like a carnival celebration every time she walks downstairs.

“They’re beautiful as a canopy over a bed or creating a wreath or a spin wheel,” Oatman said. “I saw someone cut cupcake holders into flower shapes and put them over string lights. You can really create something unique.”

She and other planners said string lights started coming out of the holiday pigeonhole when Pinterest exploded. Suddenly people were posting photos of string lights around mirrors, in wine bottles and hung under Dixie Cups or painted toilet paper rolls. The one challenge is hiding all the cords and keeping an eye on extension cord safety.

“There are solar string lights, LED lights, string lights on a timer, so you can control when you have them on; it’s just so much easier to decorate with them,” Oatman said. “The hours you get from an LED light, it’s much greater than the old string lights used to be.”

John Bruce of Outdoor Lighting Perspectives in Overland Park said people started requesting them after more restaurants put string lights up around their eating spaces. The restaurants wanted lighting but not harsh overhead lights.

There are a lot of options, depending on whether people want something temporary or a permanent application outside, he said. The most popular bulb, what he calls a “Coney Island,” is smaller than a regular light bulb but larger than Christmas lights.

“Sometimes people try and do too much, and they want to create a ceiling and the goal is to create an accent and some interest, not cover the sky,” he said.

Both Bruce and Carolyn Campbell Schwartz, owner of Ultrapom Events Rental in Kansas City, said the biggest challenge is that people will want to use string lights in a wide open space or on a super-high ceiling, like in a barn. If there aren’t any trees or structures, there’s nothing to hang the lights on.

For weddings, Campbell Schwartz likes to create a “wall of light” that’s almost a curtain, particularly behind the head table. The cost? About $300 to $400.

“The pictures are great because you have this glowing backdrop and this warm light,” she said. “It’s almost like an art piece.”

Campbell Schwartz prefers 2-inch clear bulbs or old-fashioned Edison lights that hang down. They pretty up a not-so-pretty space and help big spaces, like a gym, feel more intimate if hung at a lower level.

She has hung lights outside on her back patio but was taking them down to use for a wedding this weekend.

Stallbaumer is already planning her next project, this one for the holidays.

“I’m definitely having Karen come and do my tree next year, because she showed me a picture of her tree, and mine did not look like that,” she said. “On my own, it’s laughable. I don’t have the time or the patience or the skill.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 7:00 AM.