Permanent roofline lights on a Cape Cod: dormers, short eaves and steep gables
A story-and-a-half Cape gives you a low eave, a steep roof face and a row of dormers. Here is which of those lines to light, how each one looks from the street, and what it costs.
What makes a Cape roofline different
Christmas lights on a Cape Cod house start at the front eave, the long level edge just above the first-floor windows. After that, you are choosing between two kinds of extras: the dormers that sit up on the roof face, and the steep gables at each end of the house.
A Cape is a story and a half. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's field guide describes it by that height, a symmetrical three or five bay front, a steep roof with gables at the ends, often dormers, and a chimney at the side. The National Park Service's bulletin on historic residential suburbs adds that the Cape provided most of the low-cost suburban housing right after the Second World War, sometimes built by the hundreds. On a Michigan Cape, snow slides off that steep roof and over the front eave every winter, which is one reason the channel mounts to the fascia, below the roof plane.
For lighting, that shape means three things that no other common house type puts together:
- The main eave is at one-story height, like a ranch, but only across the front and back.
- The roof face above it is tall and steep, so most of what you see from the street is shingles.
- The interesting edges, the dormers, sit in the middle of that roof face instead of on its outline.
A ranch is one long line and a colonial is two stacked lines. A Cape is one low line with small shapes floating above it, and the whole plan comes from deciding how many of those shapes to draw.
The low front eave
The front eave is the one line every Cape should light. It runs the full width of the house at the top of the first-floor wall, and because the house is symmetrical, it centers on the front door.
We fix the aluminum channel along the face of the fascia, or beneath the drip edge where that edge is cleaner, and no fastener ever goes through a shingle. On a Cape the eave is low enough to be seen from the front walk, so two details matter more than they do on a two-story:
- The color match. The channel is matched to your trim. At eye level that match is what keeps it barely visible by day, so bring up any plans to repaint the trim before the install.
- The brightness. A lit edge ten or twelve steps from the door is bright at close range. A soft warm white suits a low eave best, and the level can be dialed back from the app whenever it feels like too much.
Many Capes have grown sideways over the years, with an attached garage, a breezeway or a one-story wing on one end. Those eaves usually sit at a different height from the main house. We break the channel at each step and give the addition its own zone, so the original house can be lit on its own or together with the wing.
Dormers: outline them or skip them
Front dormers are the part of a Cape that takes the most planning. A gabled dormer has a small peak of its own, two short rakes and a short return at each side, all set back from the main eave on the slope of the roof. Lit, a pair or a row of them turns a plain band into a house with a face.
How to decide depends on the dormers you have:
| Your dormers | What we suggest | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Two or three matching gabled dormers, evenly spaced | Outline them | The repeated peaks are the signature of a Cape. Lit, they read clearly from across the street. |
| One wide shed dormer across the front | Light its front edge, or skip it | A shed dormer has a level front edge, so lit it becomes a second eave. That works when it spans most of the roof and looks stranded when it is short. |
| Mismatched dormers from later additions | Usually skip | Lighting them highlights the mismatch. The eave and gables carry the house better on their own. |
| Dormers only on the back of the house | Skip | Nobody sees them from the street, so they only add footage. |
A middle option is to light only the two rakes of each dormer, the upside-down V, and leave the short returns dark. The peaks still show, with fewer cuts in the channel. We go through the broader question of which lines earn their place in our roofline layout guide.
Each dormer is several short runs with mitered cuts and a joint at every peak, so a dormer takes more work per foot than a long straight eave. A row of lit dormers is one of the main things that moves a Cape from the low end of the band toward the high end.
Steep side gables
The gables on a Cape face the side yards, not the street. From straight across the street you see the roof face, and each gable shows only as a short upright edge at the end of the roof. From down the block, from a corner, or from the neighbor's driveway, the full triangle comes into view.
So the side gables are worth lighting when people see the house at an angle:
- Corner lots, where one gable faces a street of its own.
- Wide side yards, where the approach from either direction shows the gable ends.
- A curved street or a cul-de-sac, where the house is seen from the side more often than head on.
On a tight lot with a neighbor ten or fifteen feet away, the gables are mostly seen by the neighbor. Lighting just the front rake at each end is a good compromise. It turns the corners of the lit eave upward and frames the roof face without committing to both full triangles.
The pitch is the other thing to plan for. A steep rake runs much longer than the level width of the gable under it, and that length is in the measurement. The geometry, and how to estimate a rake before anyone climbs a ladder, is in measuring gables and peaks. If a side chimney sits on a gable end, we plan the rake run around it on site.
Where a Cape lands in the price band
Every foot of lit roofline on a Cape falls between $22 and $34, and you pay it once. A Cape's footage depends almost entirely on how many of the optional lines you choose, so we do not give Capes one typical length. Here is what each layout covers and how it moves the price:
| Layout | What it covers on a Cape | Where it sits in the band |
|---|---|---|
| Eave and front rakes | Front eave plus the front rake at each end | Toward the low end: long straight runs and few joints |
| Eave, dormers and front rakes | Front eave, every matching dormer outlined, and the front rakes | Higher: each dormer adds short runs and a joint at its peak |
| Eave, dormers and full side gables | All of the above plus both side gables, or a Cape with an attached garage or wing | The most footage and the most cuts |
Within each layout, eave-heavy houses sit toward the low end and dormer-heavy ones toward the high end, because short runs with many joints take more work than one long straight edge. Once you have measured your layout, the price table and five-year calculator give the permanent figure and five seasons of the lease for that footage, against one payment for the permanent version.
If you only want the front eave, check it against the lease minimum. A seasonal C9 lease runs $18–32 a foot each season, and the lease has a minimum of $595 a season. A short Cape eave on its own can price near that floor. For some owners the lease is simply the better fit, especially if a move is a year or two away. We cover when that is true in the downsides of permanent lights.
A one-story Cape wing or garage is priced like the ranch eaves in our ranch house guide. The Rochester Hills page explains why peak count, more than footage, is what makes two quotes for similar houses differ.
Measuring dormers from a photo
You can price a Cape from one photo with the LightCast measuring tool. Everything is processed in your browser, and the picture is never uploaded. Dormers take a little care, because they sit inside the roof outline rather than on its edge.
- Stand across the street, straight on. Center the front door in the frame. A Cape is symmetrical, so a centered shot keeps the dormers the same size left and right.
- Step back far enough to show the ridge. Shooting from close to the house tilts the roof face away from you, and the dormers look squat.
- Pick your reference. Tap the front door and use 3 feet. If the garage faces the street, a double door at 16 feet or a single at 9 feet is a longer, better ruler.
- Redraw it by hand. The automatic trace follows the top edge of the house against the sky, and on a Cape that is mostly the ridge, which is never lit. Press Clear to remove that trace, switch to manual mode and tap the front eave as one line. Then tap New string before each dormer and tap its lower left corner, its peak and its lower right corner. Every dormer ends up as its own short run, and no footage is counted between them.
- Note the side gables. A straight-on photo cannot show the full length of a side gable. If you want them lit, say so in your estimate notes.
Leaves and big evergreens are what most often hide a Cape's low eave, so a clear angle matters more than a perfect one. If the eave is hidden from the middle of the street, shift a few steps left or right until it shows.
Once the range looks right, request your estimate and tell us which dormers and gables you want lit. We confirm every request inside 24 hours, and every edge, including the rakes the photo could not see, is measured on site before any channel is ordered.
Questions about this
Can the lights go on the dormer windows instead of the dormer roof?
The channel goes on the dormer's roof edges, its fascia and rakes, the same way it does on the main eave. Nothing mounts to the window trim or the dormer siding, and nothing fastens through the shingles around the dormer.
Do I have to light all the dormers if I light one?
If they match, yes, or the house looks unfinished. Light every matching front dormer or none. A single mismatched dormer from a later addition is the exception and usually looks better left dark.
Will snow sliding off a steep Cape roof hit the lights?
The channel is low-profile and sits on the fascia, below the roof plane, so snow sliding off the roof passes over it instead of catching on it. The LEDs are rated for Michigan winters and have no filaments to break in the cold.
Can I light just the dormers and leave the eave dark?
You can, but it rarely looks right. Without the eave under them, lit dormers float over a dark house. The eave is the base the rest of the layout sits on, so it is the line we suggest keeping.