Twelve Bridges Christmas Light Hanging

About half of Twelve Bridges was left as open ground on purpose. It’s why you can stand at a back fence on the south side of Lincoln and look across a draw at somebody else’s roof a long way off. And it’s why lights here get seen from farther than in most tracts. If you’re after Twelve Bridges Christmas light hanging and you’d rather keep both feet on the lawn, read on.

This is the part people get wrong. We looked for one master association covering all of Twelve Bridges and didn’t find one. Some neighborhoods have an HOA and some don’t. Century Communities sells its Rialto and Millau collections here as having no HOA, and a local homebuyer guide says plenty of Twelve Bridges homes pay no HOA fees at all.

So check your own closing papers. If you have no association, then no association is setting a window for your lights. Put them up when you like and enjoy them. If you do have one, read its rules and tell us what they say about decorations when you call (916) 675-8282. We don’t quote dates we haven’t seen in writing.

The two big neighbors up here are their own stories. Verdera, behind its gate, and Sun City Lincoln Hills each have an association with rules of their own, and a page apiece: Verdera and Sun City Lincoln Hills.

Builders are still putting up tract homes in Twelve Bridges. A new house is a pleasure to light. The gutters are straight and the paint is fresh, which is one more reason we use clips and keep nails and staples away from it. Roofline lights along the front eave and the peaks over the garage are usually where to start.

The yard is a different matter. A tree that went in two summers ago is too small to wrap. For a few years the ground-level work falls to other things:

• Stake lighting beside the front path and up the edge of the drive, kept clear of new drip lines and sprinkler heads.
• Pillar wraps wound up the porch posts or the columns by the door.
• Lit garland up and over the front door, tied on, with the cord run down the hinge side where it hides.
• One lit wreath, either above the garage door or high in the front gable.

When the trees have some trunk to them, tree wraps join the list.

The terrain rolls, with open-space corridors and walking trails threaded between the neighborhoods. A house on the high side of a street shows its whole front to the block below. A house that backs to a corridor shows its rear roofline to everyone on the trail and to the homes across the way.

That’s worth a minute of thought before you decide what to light. Sometimes the back eave earns a run of its own. A timer handles the switch for you, on at dark and off before the late hours, which is a kindness to whoever faces you across the open space.

Most of our trips up here follow Twelve Bridges Drive, past the Lincoln Public Library and Twelve Bridges High School, with Lincoln Village at Twelve Bridges for a coffee on the way out. We also hang lights on storefronts and offices, should you run a business in that center.

There’s more on our Lincoln page and on the page about lighting a home.

You phone (916) 675-8282 or text three or four pictures of the place, or use the contact form. We ask where the outlets are and what you’d like lit, then quote it over the phone. The lights, cords and timers are all ours.

In January we return and remove every bit of it, HOA or not. If something stops working in the meantime, (916) 675-8282. And the open ground across the draw goes back to being dark, the way the planners meant it.

Is there one master association for all of Twelve Bridges?

We found no single master HOA. Some neighborhoods have an association and some, like the Rialto and Millau collections, are sold as no HOA. Check your own documents.

I have no HOA. Is there any limit on when I can put lights up?

Not from an association. Pick the weekend that suits you and we’ll hang to it.

My trees are brand new. What does Twelve Bridges Christmas light hanging put in the yard for now?

Stakes beside the path, wrapped porch posts and garland at the door fill in nicely until the trees are big enough to wrap.

My house backs to open space. Should I light the back?

It’s worth considering, since the rear roofline is what the trail and the homes across the corridor see. One clean run usually does it.