Austin, Texas is a wonderful place to live and play. In our area, we have the rolling hill country for the outdoorsy types who love to camp, hunt and fish. In the city, we have an abundance of night life activities and cultural experiences, as well as laid back things to do. We also have a diversified population including intricate craftsman, Google nerds, and business and industry professionals in many different fields. So, what is the one thing all of these people have in common? They all get paid for the work they do and services they provide.
I’ve often wondered, what is something that is free actually worth? Can you think of something of significant value that people are willing to give away? Aside from charitable contributions, can you think of a professional who has invested in a quality education to learn their profession essentially giving that knowledge and talent away for free? For example, when was the last time you heard about an architect designing a home for free? He might meet with you for a free consultation, but I can pretty much guarantee that he’s not going to develop the plans to your new home without a fee.
Dog walkers charge a fee to walk while holding a leash and picking up poo. Chefs charge a fee for planning and preparing an extraordinary meal. Interior designers charge a fee for envisioning your home to create an environment that makes you feel warm and secure. These jobs each have completely different skill sets. It doesn’t take a lot of training to learn how to walk a dog, so I doubt they would charge as much as an experienced chef or interior designer will charge. That chef, designer, architect, auto mechanic or other professional probably spent a lot of their time and money to acquire all the knowledge that they carry around upstairs; and that expertise is worth something.
Now many landscape lighting people in the Austin area got into the field as a landscaper or irrigator, or maybe even a lawn maintenance person, and they may still offer those services as their primary business — and lighting is an added revenue source. They probably attended a half-day seminar at the irrigation supply house where they learned how to “sell lighting” to increase their profits. For these folks, maybe that free quote isn’t a big deal because they don’t really have a lot invested in learning the intricacies of lighting design, just how to sell lights.
What makes NightScenes different, and the reason why we charge a design fee, is that I have a passion for this craft, and have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars travelling around the country to learn about lighting design, lighting installation and lighting maintenance. We don’t sell lights – our product is atmosphere, ambience and safety. I’ve learned first-hand from people like Nate Mullen who developed the Unique outdoor lighting products and wrote the Landscape Lighting Resource Manual. I have worked with Janet Lennox Moyer who authored the Landscape Lighting Book (yes, that’s pretty much the outdoor lighting bible), and also created the Landscape Lighting Institute in Troy, New York – which I also have participated in. So, just like the architect who charges to develop the construction plans for a new home, or the landscape architect who charges to develop a landscape plan, I charge to develop a landscape lighting plan.
Personally, I think that a lighting design that is done in five minutes in the seat of the pickup truck while sitting in the driveway is probably worth what that person is charging for it. Of course, a plan that takes several hours of consideration to construct should be worth quite a bit more. Does anyone really believe that someone who is working for free is going to put in as much effort on a project as someone who is being paid for that project?
Now there are customers who really don’t want a lot of time and effort to be put into design; they just want a few lights and know where they want them, so there is no need to hire someone like NightScenes for that (and we don’t charge a design fee for those small projects). But when it comes to an estate property or a very nice custom built home, the difference in a free quote and a properly designed outdoor lighting system is glaring (to use a pun). Even the untrained eye can tell the difference in most cases. Homes located in the Tarrytown, Spanish Oaks, Seven Oaks, Enfield, Robb Roy and other high-end areas of Austin and the Texas Hill Country, like Horseshoe Bay and Spicewood really need a well-thought out professional lighting design, not just a free quote produced in QuickBooks or on another invoicing software. These properties deserve excellence: wash lights where needed, down lights where needed, grazing techniques, silhouetting, cross lighting, back lighting and other style accents. They deserve different levels of lighting, not the same fixture with the same lumen output on everything. They deserve serious design. These homes and landscapes are special and deserve to be treated specially.
So, the reason we charge a design fee is because we have invested a lot to gain extensive knowledge about light, outdoor lighting design, installation and maintenance; and that knowledge has real value for our clients. It truly is worth something — so we do indeed charge something. Really, I think of it as commissioning us to create an art piece.
If you would like to commission us to create art using light at your central Texas home, or anywhere else for that matter, just contact us here.
