I am happy to once again join up with the fabulous linky hosted by Miss Math Dork, 4mulafun, The Teacher Studio, and Teaching to Inspire in 5th!
Last year was our first Christmas in our new house, and when it came to putting up the Christmas lights...our house looked a little sad. The amount of lights it took to decorate our old house, covered a small fraction of our new house. My husband and I started to dream of creating this winter wonderland, but I wasn't about to shell out hundreds of dollars on lights when I knew they would be going on sale within a month! So our dreams of a colourful lit up house would have to wait a year.
Fast forward to this year, we have a lot more lights...thanks to hitting up the clearance racks after Christmas (additional 60% off!!)...but do we have enough?
When standing before the clearance rack my husband and I did a little estimating to determine how many boxes of lights we would need. Each box of lights was 33 feet, 3 inches long. We knew we wanted to put lights up along the eavestroughs and peaks of the roof, but of course we didn't think to actually measure how much we would need before hitting the stores.
My husband had a rough idea of the dimensions, so using a little mental math and estimation, we decided upon 4 more boxes, on top of the 2 we already had. That gave us 199 feet and 6 inches to work with.
So up on the ladder went my husband while I nervously held the bottom steady. Attaching the lights to the eavestroughs wasn't so bad but I was holding my breath while he put them along the peaks of our roof.
Did you know...it's estimated that more than 15,000 people end up in emergency rooms from injuries resulting from hanging holiday decorations?!?!
I didn't want to become one of those people!
I didn't want to become one of those people!
Turns out that one set of lights was exactly the length of the peaks on our roof.
In the end we had enough lights that we even brought them down one side of the house and ran them along our foundation. I'd say our estimation skills were on target.
Once the lights were up and my husband was back on solid ground...we still weren't quite happy with how it looked...we needed more. So off to the store we went and bought 2 more boxes (luckily on sale...this time only 25% off)
The extra lights we wrapped around the railings of our front porch.
Voila we have lights!
I still might hit up the clearance section again this year. I think lights around the garage door would really give it a finished look!
How did you use math this month in your life?
We've been in our house for 5 years now and we have yet to decorate the outside.... I think that needs to change. Want to come visit for a weekend?!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for linking up with us this month!
Mathematically yours!
Jamie aka MissMathDork!
Now will you look at that? Wow! Your home is towering and just right there before you. One can only imagine the struggle the process of obtaining a house like that, but it's good that everything can be arrested by sound financial planning and stuff. Anyway, thanks for sharing that! I hope you're settling in nicely. All the best!
ReplyDeleteLydia Piscioneri @ Credit Group Australia