News

Happy Memorial Day From Moonlighting

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:22:00 GMT

Happy Memorial Day from Moonlighting! In observation of this great holiday, we've included a little patriotism into this post. This photo comes from the Beresford Hall community, where we designed and installed the lighting system throughout the community. We've also included a few other pictures from landscape lighting in Beresford Hall. We'd like to thank every one of the service members that proudly serve our country! We will be closed on Monday, May 28th and returning in Tuesday May, 29th. Have a great Memorial Day!

The Moonlighting Fleet Gets A Welcomed Makeover!

Wed, 23 May 2012 18:54:00 GMT

After nearly 20 years of flying under-the-radar, it was finally time give our fleet of vehicles a much-needed makeover. We got together with Shane Lasby and his creative experts at Turnkey Creative and asked them to help us design individual sets of decals for each of our vehicles. We also asked that they help us create something a little outside the box, something that would help reflect the Moonlighting brand. If you notice in the pictures that we've included below, there is a creatively placed moon shining from the cargo windows. What better way to reflect Moonlighting? So, if you see our crews out and about town, be sure to give them a wave! We'd like to thank the guys at Turnkey Creative for putting together some great ideas!

Doug's New-Look Chevy Pick-Up

A Side View Of Our Foreman Butch's Chevy Pick-Up

A Side View Of Our Foreman Michael's Toyota Pick-Up

Rear-View

Notice In The Cargo Window, The Creatively Placed Moon

The Moonlighting Service Van

Rear-View

Mike's GMC Yukon Even Got A New Look!

Moonlighting Sets The Stage For Plantasia

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:16:00 GMT

Just a few weeks ago, Moonlighting donated the outdoor lighting for the annual Plantasia event held in Charleston. Plantasia is an annual event sponsored by the Charleston Horticultural Society geared towards inspiring excellence in lowcountry horticulture. Plantasia helps provide as an educational experience for it's participants through special events such as; walking tours, guest speakers, auctions, workshops and much, much more!

Moonlighting became involved by providing the outdoor lighting for the Plantasia Fete Preview Party. The party included cocktails, live entertainment, great food and great company. We wanted to be able to create a nice ambiance for the evening by subtly lighting some of the existing landscape within Wragg Square, where the party was held. Below are some great shots that we were able to capture of the evening. We would like to thank the Charleston Horticultural Society for allowing us this opportunity and encourage anybody that has not experienced Plantasia to mark their calendars for next year!

Moonlighting Participates In The 2012 Charleston Home & Design Show!

Tue, 08 May 2012 19:25:00 GMT

Moonlighting participated in the 2012 Charleston Home and Design Magazine Home Show at the Family Circle Cup Stadium, along with many of Charleston's most respected professionals. The show took place on the weekend the weekend of April 22nd. The show not only included display booths, but it also featured a really great "Homes By Architects" tour of six private residences on Daniel Island, and "Food Truck Row!" Food Truck Row featured five of Charleston's most renowned food trucks. It was a great turn out at the show and at the Moonlighting booth.

The Moonlighting booth consisted of some amazing plants that were kindly donated to us from our friends at Hyams Garden And Accent Store on James Island. We also teamed up with the creative professionals at Turnkey Creative, located on Johns Island, and created some custom made banners for the booth! We made sure that when the sun went down our booth would continue to shine. The Moonlighting crew came in creatively lit the plantings, as well as the banners.

We would like to thank everybody that came out and met us, as well as our great hosts over at Charleston Home and Design Magazine. As usual, it was a great time! Also, be sure to check out the latest edition of Charleston Home and Design Magazine that features a great write-up on Moonlighting and outdoor lighting in Charleston.

Michael and Tyler helping "set the stage."

A shot of one our banners and part of our display. Thanks Turnkey!

As the sun goes down, our booth continues to shine!

Moonlighting Re-Visits A Familiar Downtown Charleston Garden

Tue, 08 May 2012 19:58:00 GMT

After we got our brand new camera in this week, Mike was chomping at the bit to put it to use. We had just concluded an installation project on a familiar downtown Charleston garden, that Moonlighting originally designed and installed close to 15 years ago. Our new design focused on responding to some recent landscape improvements.

This was a really fun project as we were able to draw a little focus to a historically protected wall. The characteristics of the wall were so intriguing that it really left us no choice but to make it a focal point. We also did a little something different by highlighting some hanging baskets. Where the baskets were located, the space was incredibly dark. In order for the design to feel truly balanced, we incorporated some lights to highlight them and bring a little more light in. Check out some pictures from our recent project below!

Poor Maintenance Can Lead To A "Mound" Of Trouble!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:32:00 GMT

Here we have an interesting shot that one of our service tech's managed to snap while on the job this week. This is an up light that is completely covered by an angry fire-ant nest! It inspired this post about how important a regular maintenance program on your landscape lighting system is. How do you clean this mess up, you ask? Simple...

Proper maintenance should not just consist of changing lamps that have burned out. A solid maintenance program consists of cleaning the fixtures and lenses, selectively pruning the vegetation around the fixture to allow for maximum beam-spread, re-aiming necessary fixtures and the adjusting the shielding of the fixtures so that the source of light can be hidden as much as possible.

Sometimes maintenance even goes a little bit beyond the standard practices, such as this predicament. In South Carolina, fire-ants are very prevalent and are not know for their personalities. They deliver what can be a very painful bite, but that's a different story. When a mound is built up like this around a fixture it can cause a great deal of damage to the fixture, the socket, and the bulb. The best way to treat this is to clean away from the fixture as much as possible without disturbing the nest and spread a granular fire repellent onto the mound. It usually takes a few hours to kick in and take care of the nest. After that, it's safe to go ahead and complete the service and clean up around the fixture and get everything back to normal!

Hopefully that little maintenance tip helps! if your landscape lighting can benefit from a maintenance package, contact Moonlighting today. We have custom maintenance proposals that accommodate your landscape lighting systems! Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter and most recently Houzz!

Would you ever have guessed that there's a light hiding in there?

There it is!

Moonlighting Installs The Second Phase Of Landscape Lighting At C of C, Cistern Yard

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:08:00 GMT

The Moonlighting crew spent the first week back from the holidays occupying the Cistern Yard at The College of Charleston, installing the second phase of the landscape lighting.

Moonlighting was initially involved in the first phase of Cistern Yard renovation that concluded in 2011. After the renovation concluded, President , Michael Rollins wanted to add a second dimension to the landscape lighting design. The Cistern Yard serves as host to many important ceremonies and events, perhaps most notably for the recent Stephen Colbert "Rock You Like A Herman Cain" rally. Rollins felt that expanding the system to fully capture the natural beauty of the native live oaks would be the final piece of the puzzle.

Rollins said, "After meeting with several university officials, we all agreed that the Cistern Yard needed just a little more. The oak trees are such a naturally beautiful aspect of the landscape that I wanted to be sure to fully capture that beauty."

The Moonlighting crew brought in a commercial lift as well as some of our tallest and most trusty ladders and took to the trees. We stayed consistent and "green" with our original design by utilizing LED fixtures.

If you happen to fins yourself on campus at night, take a minute to enjoy what the Cistern Yard has to offer when the sun goes down.

Also, a live feed of the Cistern Yard can be seen here. If you aren't able to make it down to the campus, you can enjoy the view from the comfort of your own computer.

Sandy (below) is set to make his way up the ladder and make some final adjustments to this tree-mounted up light.

Mike, One of Moonlighting's head foreman is installing another tree-mounted up light. This light is being aimed to capture one of the beautiful aspects of a live oak; the canopy and it's unique limbs.

While secured in the lift, we thought a cool shot would be to give you a 'birds eye view' of what a fixture sees from an oak tree.

Another shot of a fixture being mounted on a live oak, with the historic Randolph Hall in the background.

Merry Christmas And Happy New Year From Moonlighting!

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:11:00 GMT

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everybody at Moonlighting! We will be closing our office in observance of the holiday season on Friday, December 23rd and returning Tuesday, January 3rd. We would like to wish everybody a very happy and safe holiday season. We look forward to a great 2012 and thank all of our customers and supporters for making 2011 such a successful year!

Moonlighting Installs A Custom Grill Light

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:26:00 GMT

Recently we were presented with an interesting design challenge in lighting a newly installed grill to an existing customers landscape. Without any surrounding trees to sufficiently down light the grill from, we had to think creatively and research just the right fixture. The fixture that we decided to incorporate was a Focus brand. This fixture was instrumental to the functionality of the space because when the homeowner wasn't using the grill, he didn't always want the fixture to be visible. This particular fixture was detachable and gave us the flexibility we needed for a successful design and installation. The homeowner can now enjoy his new outdoor grilling area in the night areas with ease. Below are some pictures we were able to capture during the installation process.

Before the fixture was installed.

Our lead foreman "Butch" is carefully constructing a custom built box to support the new fixture.

The final product and hopefully some nicely cooked steaks to follow!

Moonlighting Modifies A Familiar Landscape Lighting System

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:27:00 GMT

We were contacted by one of our long-time clients just a few weeks ago to make a few additions to an existing system. This system has been installed and regularly maintained by Moonlighting for quite some time now.The homeowner saw a few aspects of her landscape that she wanted to see highlighted and enhanced.

After a night-time visit walking through the landscape and evaluating the design options, we noticed several dark areas that would benefit from additional lighting. Just a few short days after meeting with the client, Moonlighting was on site making the appropriate additions and adjustments. We converted several of the down lights to LED. Making the move to LED allowed us the opportunity of adding in more fixtures, with less wattage and not adding any additional stress on the transformer.

With the new lights that we incorporated into the design, it really helped captivate the entire landscape. Enjoy some of the fun snap shots that we were able to capture after the project was completed.

The front entrance is flanked by two crape myrtles and and softly lit Japanese Maple

Crape myrtles lit by a combination of of up and down lighting help bring light into a dark space.

The down lights were converted to LED.

A nice shot of the back patio.

Several of these unique frog statues can found hidden through out the landscape. Of course we had to show him off!

Another shot of our amphibious friend in his natural state in the landscape.

Native live oak

Lighting on the column not only provides a sense of safety, it allows the beautiful annuals in the planting bed below the opportunity to be shown off.

Timing Is Of The Essence! Don't Forget To Adjust Your Time Clocks

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:34:00 GMT

It's that time of year again everybody! Time to adjust your landscape lighting timers to reflect the upcoming day-light savings time change. On Sunday, November 7th we officially set the clocks and "fall back." If your timers haven't been adjusted, then they will be coming on an hour later than usual.

It's a great time of year to enjoy your landscape lighting. With cooler temperatures, enjoying family and friends during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Time clocks can tend to be a little tricky at times, whether they are mechanical, electronic or even astronomical. Let Moonlighting help you out with that! Feel free to contact us at our office, or even through our website and we would love the opportunity to assist you all in your landscape lighting needs.

Below are several examples of some time clocks that might be controlling your landscape lighting system.

Example Of A Mechanical Time Clock

Example Of An Electronic Time Clock

Example Of An Astronomical Time Clock

Moonlighting Sets The Stage For An Outdoor Engagement Party

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:12:00 GMT

At Moonlighting, it's always a welcoming phone call when we are presented with an opportunity to do a lighting design/install that's a little outside the box.

We were contacted by a very excited future, mother-of-the-groom who was going to be hosting an outdoor engagement party for her son, and his future bride. The home is located on beautiful marsh front overlooking the Ashley River. At the rear of the property stands a beautiful native live oak. This is ordinary oak tree though, this oak tree was hand drawn by the brides mother, as the invitation to this special event. What better way to highlight this tree, by really making it glow for the occasion.This would be the only part of the landscape that we would be lighting, which would really allow the tree to shine!

The tree is located almost 500 ft away from the house and the nearest available power source, so wiring and bulb selection would be very instrumental in capturing the live oak. We were able to highlight the tree with a series of two up lights and two down lights. The combination of both really allowed the natural, true beauty of the tree to flourish when the sun goes down. Now with the flip of the switch, the oak tree will be glowing for the engagement party and many years to come! We would like wish the young couple the best and are thankful for having the opportunity to help make their special day that much more special!

Moonlighting Teams Up With D.I.G Landscape!

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:56:00 GMT

We always enjoy working with our local landscape designers and contractors here in Charleston. We were especially excited to team up with Patty Craven and the D.I.G Landscape team on this newly constructed home in Mount Pleasant.

The couple that bought the home, visited Charleston last year and absolutely fell in love with the lowcountry. So much, that they decided this would be the place they would retire. They enlisted in the services of D.I.G Landscape to put together a beautiful landscape design plan and help give them the landscape they always hoped for. D.I.G then asked Moonlighting to aid in the designing and installation of the outdoor lighting portion of the project.

This design consisted of highlighting many of the newly planted crape myrtles, sabal palmettos and birch trees. The placement of the trees were a key element in allowing us to put together a balanced, yet aesthetically pleasing plan. A beautiful water feature was installed to serve as the centerpiece of the new landscape. To capture the new addition, Moonlighting helped tie in two LED water lights, and then accented three newly planted birch trees planted around the water feature itself.

We would like to thank the homeowners along with Patty and Nick at D.I.G Landscapes for allowing us the opportunity to put the final touch on this lowcountry dream home. Enjoy the night shots that we were able to capture below!

Like Moonlighting and D.I.G Landscape on Facebook today!

Four crape myrtles highlight the front of the home.

Two crape myrtles on the right begin a beautiful alley of palms.

Another view from the front of the home.

By up lighting the two crape myrtles and capturing the palms, it creates a warm and inviting entrance to the back yard.

Two LED water lights highlight inside the water feature, while three up lights capture the newly planted birch trees.

Another angle of the back yard water feature.

Two sabal palmettos located off the back patio, lit from the inside.

A Sneak Peak Of The Charleston Home And Remodel Show

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:22:00 GMT

Here is a sneak peak of what's happening at the Gaillard Auditorium this weekend. The Charleston Home and Design Magazine is hosting their annual Home and Remodel Show! The remodel show is the only one of it's kind in Charleston and it's surely a can't miss event! Moonlighting has donated the outdoor lighting to help illuminate the Outdoor Living Experience portion of the show. Many of your favorite Charleston vendors, architects, designers, etc are on hand this weekend to share their craft and their products with you!

Visitors of the Home and Remodel Show can register to qualify to win an amazing custom backyard makeover, a value of $10,000! As a part of the backyard makeover, Moonlighting has donated a custom Moonlighting Express 4-LightPackage, a $975 value!

Once Hurricane Irene moves on out of town, enjoy the sunshine and head down to the Gaillard Auditorium this weekend. Meet some amazing vendors, architects and designers at the Home and Remodel show. And take a minute to admire some of the creative lighting we installed around the Outdoor Living Experience!

Remark Landscape Architectural Studio's cool booth!

A view from the back entrance of the Outdoor Living Experience.

A gorgeous water feature brought to you by D.I.G Landscapes

Moonlighting Above And Beyond Charleston

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:53:00 GMT

Moonlighting doesn't limit itself to only the Charleston area. We have on many occasions ventured out of the friendly confines of this beautiful city to new and equally beautiful locations for landscape lighting opportunities. For instance, this lovely private lake home is located just outside of Spartanburg, SC. Interior lighting designer Heather Wright, of Holland Lighting Design was instrumental in Moonlighting's involvement on the landscape lighting portion of this project.

Moonlighting designed and installed a landscape lighting system that would help provide some much needed circulation lighting to the three buildings on the property. Moonlighting also made sure to highlight the beautiful waterfall that was constructed on the homeowners very own private lake.

To accomplish this innovative and creative vision, Moonlighting used several different forms of lighting to ensure a successful design and installation. We were able to combine low voltage, line voltage and even LED lighting to create the perfect scene.

A daytime shot of this beautiful and private up state South Carolina lake home.

The Moonlighting crew takes a moment to strike a pose.

Our low voltage fixtures were placed inside and around the custom built waterfall.

Fixtures were mounted on the rocks, inside the waterfall itself, and from surrounding trees above.

A successful design and installation lead up to a truly spectacular final product.

Step lights on the dock and patio help lead the way to the dock at the base of the back yard.

Our custom LED "Puck Lights" help glow the dock.

We accomplished a "Moonlighting" effect by down lighting from the surrounding trees with Mercury Vapor.

Up/Down lighting in the pavilion area helps provide some warm ambient light while enjoying the space.