Chicagoland · Permanent lighting
Eave lighting tucked into the soffit — warm white all year, full color on demand.
What’s involved
Permanent architectural lighting installs a discreet track of individually addressable LEDs into the soffit and eave lines of the home, where the fixtures disappear against the trim in daylight. From an app you set warm-white accent lighting for everyday evenings, then switch to red-and-green at the holidays, orange for Halloween, or team colors on game day — with no ladder, no seasonal install, and no takedown. Because the run is mounted once and wired to the home, the quality of the initial install matters: proper soffit channel, sealed connections, and a clean controller location. Installers matched through Curbstead do new-build pre-wire coordination as well as retrofits on existing homes, and size the system to the roofline rather than selling a fixed kit.
Questions
Before you book permanent lighting.
- Are the fixtures visible during the day?
- Barely. The track sits inside the soffit channel behind the drip edge, so from the street it reads as trim. Most homeowners only notice it if they know exactly where to look, which is the point of a permanent system versus seasonal strands.
- Can I still get the classic warm-white Christmas look?
- Yes. Addressable LEDs render a convincing warm white as well as saturated color, so you can run everyday warm white most of the year and switch to holiday scenes from the app without changing anything on the house.
- How long does the install take?
- A typical retrofit is one to two days depending on roofline complexity and access. New-build coordination is scheduled around your framing and soffit stage so the channel goes in before the exterior is closed up.
- What is the warranty on a permanent system?
- Reputable installers warranty both the LED track and the workmanship, commonly for multiple years on the diodes and a separate period on labor. Confirm the specific terms and who handles service calls before you sign.
Where we match installers