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Johnston, Iowa

Christmas Light Installation For Johnston, Iowa Homes

Johnston keeps its Christmas downtown. The whole town turns up at the Town Center for the tree, the skating and the ice carving. What Johnston does not have is a street people drive to see. That is worth knowing before you decide what to do with your own house.

Want a real number for your Johnston roofline? Nobody has to come out.

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The Town In December

Johnston's Christmas Happens At The Town Center

Holidays at the Town Center, at 6245 Merle Hay Road, is the one night the whole town shows up. It runs an early December Saturday afternoon, four to six.

5:00

is when the tree gets lit at the Town Center. Santa turns up in a police car, there are reindeer, and there is live ice sculpting while you watch.

City of Johnston event listing
7 days

a week the synthetic ice rink at the Town Center is open. It is free if you bring your own skates.

City of Johnston, Town Center
0

Johnston streets appear on any metro Christmas lights roundup we could find. Two guides that list five to seven Ankeny displays list none here.

Metro holiday lights guides, reviewed 2026

What actually happens that afternoon

The tree goes on at five. Before and after that there are free carriage rides, and the ride is free if you bring something for the food pantry. There is free skating on the rink, hot drinks, and somebody carving ice in front of a crowd.

It is a good afternoon and it is the reason Johnston's holiday season feels civic rather than residential. Everyone here is used to going somewhere for Christmas lights. Not many people here are used to seeing them on the street they live on.

Lit before the Town Center tree goes on is the target for most people here.

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Being Straight About Johnston

There Is No Famous Johnston Christmas Street

We looked hard for one. It is not there, and we are not going to invent it.

Ankeny has a street where 31 houses have run the same display for 31 years. Waukee has had a city contest. Windsor Heights judges its whole town. Johnston has none of that. We went through the metro holiday light guides and the ones that list five, six or seven Ankeny displays list zero for Johnston.

A different installer would gloss over that. We think it is the most useful thing on this page, because it changes what you are actually buying.

In a town with a famous street, lighting your house is joining in. Everyone is already doing it and you are keeping up. In Johnston it is the opposite. On most blocks here, a full roofline done properly is the only one. It gets looked at, because there is no local standard to blend into.

If you want to be one of thirty houses, Johnston is the wrong town for that and we will say so. If you would rather be the one house that stands out, this is about the easiest place in the metro to do it.

The Rules Question

Johnston Neighborhoods, And What We Could Not Find Out

The city publishes seven neighborhood associations by name. Not one of them publishes what its rules say about decorations.

The seven the city names

Cornerstone Commons, Glenstone Ridge, Green Meadows West, Meadow Park, Rittgers Oaks at Hyperion, NorthGlenn and Stone Pointe.

That is the city's own list. We can tell you they exist. We cannot tell you what any of them allows, because none of them publishes it.

What we will not pretend to know

We are not going to tell you your Johnston association has no rule about lights. We have not read one, so we do not know.

What we can tell you is what we have actually read elsewhere. We read the full recorded covenant for Prairie Trail in Ankeny, and the published covenant summary for Country Club West in Clive, which covers 646 homes. Neither one says a word about holiday lights. That is two of the metro's most rule-heavy associations, and neither restricts this.

How to check your own, free, in about ten minutes

Every declaration of covenants in Iowa is recorded and searchable at iowalandrecords.org, for all 99 counties. Search Polk County and your subdivision name and read the document yourself.

Two honest limits. Bylaws and day-to-day rules usually are not recorded, so for those you still have to ask your board. And the City of Johnston itself has no ordinance on holiday lights or on when they come down. We could not find one in any town we serve.

Send the address and we will read the roofline off the satellite image.

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Johnston Homes

What We See On Johnston Rooflines

The smallest pre-1960 share of any town we serve

Only 3.2% of Johnston's housing is older than 1960. That is the smallest old share of any city on our list, lower than Waukee, lower than Grimes, lower than Ankeny.

ACS 2020-2024, table B25034

9,720 units, median year built 2004

About 63.1% of Johnston homes went up in 2000 or later. A median of 2004 means half the housing here is newer than that and half of it is older.

ACS 2020-2024, tables B25034 and B25035

Here is the part of that worth reading twice. Johnston is 56.4% detached single-family. That is low. Older, smaller towns out here are far more detached than Johnston is. The growth here came with townhomes and apartments attached to it, same as Ankeny.

So there is no such thing as a standard Johnston job. A 2006 two-story with four gables and a Johnston townhome front are different numbers by a wide margin. That is why we read your actual roof off the satellite image before anyone says a price.

Trees And Ground

Johnston Has Real Timber, And That Changes The Quote

Camp Dodge and Beaver Creek

Camp Dodge, the Iowa National Guard headquarters, was begun in 1907 and annexed by Johnston in 1970. The banks of Beaver Creek through it remain untouched by development.

Terra Park has 6.5 miles of trails running through mature forest.

What a mature tree does to a light job

Two things. A big tree in the front yard can hide half a roofline from the street, so the lit line has to be planned around what people can actually see from the road.

And wrapping a trunk is its own job. A mature trunk takes a lot more strand than people expect, so if you want a tree wrapped, say which tree when you send the address.

What we are not going to quote you

There is no published tree canopy percentage for Johnston, or for any town in this metro. We looked. So we are not going to put a number on how wooded your street is. What we can say is what the city says about Terra Park and Beaver Creek, and what we can see on your own lot from the satellite image.

The Finished Look

Every Peak, Every Dormer, Even Spacing

Real homes around the metro. No stock photos.

Warm white roofline lighting following every peak and dormer on a large two story house at night

Dormers are where a rented ladder gives up.

Alternating red and green C9 bulbs spaced evenly along a gutter line and garage peak

Red and green, spaced by hand, not by luck.

Same day ballpark, most days. No appointment for that part.

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When A Johnston House Does Not Need Us

Single story, a gutter you can reach off a step ladder, and you enjoy doing it? Go do it. You will save real money and it will look fine.

It stops being worth it when the front is two stories with dormers, or when a big front tree means the only line worth lighting is the one that is hardest to get to. Those are the jobs we exist for.

Timing In Johnston

Aim To Be Lit Before The Town Center Tree

The town date

Holidays at the Town Center lands on an early December Saturday. Most Johnston families want their own house done before they go stand under that tree, so the weeks before it are the busiest we have.

Booking in September or early October is the safest way to get the date you want.

The weather date

We work on rooflines, so the freeze is the real deadline. In Polk County the average first 32 degree freeze lands in the middle of October and the odds climb fast after that.

Iowa State University Extension, Polk County

More on this: when to book Christmas lights in Des Moines →

What You Get

One Price, Start To Finish

  • Commercial-grade C9 bulbs, cut to fit your Johnston roofline
  • Pro-grade clips that attach without nails or screws wherever the roofline allows
  • Maintenance all season. Bulb out or clip loose, fixed within 48 hours
  • Takedown in January, booked with you
  • Storage of your set until the following October

There is no separate takedown bill and no storage fee. The bulbs, clips and cord are yours once the job is paid for. We just hold them for you so your garage stays empty.

Tate is the one who measures your roof, cuts the runs, puts them up, comes back if something goes out, and takes it all down. He owns the company and he is the one on your roof.

Go deeper: what drives the price • everything we install • DIY vs hiring • what happens if a bulb goes out • contact Tate

Nearby towns: Grimes • Ankeny • Urbandale

Get A Free Satellite Estimate For Your Johnston Home

Send the address. Tate pulls satellite imagery of your roofline, measures the runs, counts the peaks off the image, and texts a real ballpark back. Usually the same day. No appointment, and nobody comes to your house for this part.

Get your Johnston estimate

Two fields. Tate reads your roofline off satellite imagery and texts a ballpark back, usually the same day.

Required: texting is how Tate sends your estimate and confirms your install date.

The estimate is free and there is no obligation. Installs start mid-October and the calendar fills before Thanksgiving, so earlier is better.

Rather talk first? Call or text 515-585-9079

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