How to hang patio lights over your patio, deck or yard.
The ultimate guide on how to hang outdoor patio lights and all of the products you’ll need!
There’s nothing quite as charming as beautiful cafe lights draped over a deck or patio — they add so much character and ambience to outdoor living spaces in the evening.
Now that we’ve had them at two homes, these outdoor string lights are a staple for our outdoor spaces.
There are a lot of things to consider if you’re planning to install these exterior lights yourself. You’ll need a few tools in order to hang them so that they withstand the elements.
You’ll also need to consider where you are hanging them from to ensure they will be sturdy over time. I’ve compiled all of the methods — whether you have mature trees, a solid wood fence…or nothing at all in your backyard!
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The best string lights that will last!
I tried a few options when we first installed patio cafe lights at our first house years ago. I felt like Goldilocks — some were too wimpy and the bulbs broke easily. A lot of them weren’t nearly long enough for what we needed.
Many of my readers suggested these way back then — thank you! You can usually find these light strands at Costco too.
That installation was fairly easy, as each bulb has a spot where you can hang from a nail or screw:
These industrial string lights are heavy, so I recommend removing the bulbs while you install just to be safe.
How to connect patio lights to electricity.
At both of our homes we had a wall plug run specifically for the lights. At our first home, we had an electrician run a dedicated outlet and an exterior switch so we could operate the lights from our pergola.
When we built our current home, I had a plug installed into our covered patio ceiling. I hung an extension cord along the ceiling of our patio (and covered it because a hate cords) and now you barely notice it:
These solar lights would be a great option over a pool or water feature.
Hanging lights from trees or structures.
We were lucky to have some mature trees in our previous backyard. Keep in mind some trees work better than others because lights are commercial grade — our river birch trees weren’t strong enough for these heavy lights.
You want to make sure the tree can withstand the weight of the lights in wind or snow.
Also, the key to making sure your strands will stand the test of time is to use guide wires — using a wire takes the weight off of the light strands and gives them solid support.
We got wire and large eye hooks like this for our old pergola:
After your wire is secure, attach the light strands with zip ties — run them through the hole at the top (pictured above) and around the wire. As long as you get them tight the lights won’t move anywhere.
You can also run the wire through the lights before installing, but that seems like a pain and would make it way harder to move or take them down later on.
Here’s how the wires and lights look between trees when hung:
I find the best, most pleasing string lights layout is to hang them in a zig zag pattern. So for example if it’s between the house and trees, start at the house, then out to a tree, back to the house, etc.:
At our previous home, we took them back and forth from the pergola to the trees:
How to hang patio string lights when you don’t have mature trees.
If you don’t plan to keep them up year-round, those would be a great option as well. Those light posts would work well for a temporary situation like a wedding reception or outdoor party.
This lasted for a long time, through storms and crazy snow, until last year when we had tornado level winds that nearly pulled one out of the ground.
Because our backyard can be a literal wind tunnel, recently we had posts cemented into the ground:
I’ll share more about those in an upcoming backyard garden tour. If you don’t have extreme winds or weather, our cement/staked planter method will work great!
No matter how you hang them, the work is worth it! The soft light in the evenings is hard to beat:
