Summers in Virginia are always filled with community activities and backyard parties. As the days get warmer, more time is spent outdoors and hanging out with close friends and family. Most of these gatherings last well into the nighttime with the desire to stay outside for as long as possible. If you have ever hosted a gathering like this, then you know that most of it is spent in your backyard. If you don’t have the right backyard accessories to host a gathering, check out these tips that can help transform your backyard into a party worthy space!

Lighting

Outdoor lighting is the most important feature for any backyard gathering. It gives a certain aesthetic and helps illuminate your yard so your gathering can last all night. You can grab a few old mason jars that are just lying around and place some tissue paper and battery-operated flameless candles in them for an effortless centerpiece lighting on your tables. Don’t forget to light a few citronella candles throughout your backyard to fight off those pesky mosquitoes.

An email from a customer on Wednesday made our week: “I’m really late in sending you a picture of my kitchen that Pegasus helped create. Every time I turn on the under cabinet lights,  I still get that great feeling from the first time. ” And what a beautiful kitchen it is:

Fluorescent T5 Thin-Inch Light Fixtures in her kitchen remodel. We were just as thrilled with the email she sent us in the midst of the remodel:

Just wanted to let you know how pleased I am with my experiences with your website, customer service and products. I hate to be long-winded, but it”s important for me to tell you about my search for under cabinet lighting. Because I’m spending lots of money on a remodel which included gutting the kitchen, I wanted to be sure to choose the best product for the lighting under the new cabinets.

After searching at the big box stores and getting no more info than what was written on the lighting display, I tried two local lighting specialty stores. Believe it or not, I was told at one of them by the manager that xenon doesn’t have a color temperature. (I decided he had to have been born and raised on a planet with different laws of physics.) No one could really help me at all and seemed totally disinterested in trying to sell me anything. Discouraged, I came home and Googled “under cabinet lighting.”

Your website is a window on the world of lighting! Oh, my goodness, the articles about lighting, the recommendations, the product descriptions!! I was totally elated, then began to think maybe it was just too good to be true, so I revisited your website a few more times over the next few days. Then…….just to be 100% sure…….I called your toll-free number and talked with a customer service representative. I told her that I wanted WHITE light for the under cabinet lighting: standard fluorescent is too blue, daylight and LED is too green and xenon seems too yellow, so I wanted to be sure to get a color temperature that would be white. I also wanted lighting that would produce as little heat as possible. She recommended the Thin-Inch with a color temp of 4100K. We talked about my previous experiences for a couple of minutes and I thanked her for being so helpful and we ended the call.

After all that, can you believe I was still a little nervous about ordering? A couple of days later, I decided to suck it up and take the plunge. So I measured all the spaces under the cabinets, made my list using your recommendations about installing under each cabinet and filling the under cabinet width and ordered online. The shipment arrived a day early which was a very pleasant surprise. The kitchen is now mostly finished.

But the best part of it all is what the under cabinet lighting does for the backsplash! It is AMAZING!! That awesome WHITE light is perfect…….no other word describes it. And after arguing with the electrician about the placement of the fixture at the front of the under cabinet space, not the back, he agreed that the front works best as your website recommends. My experience with Pegasus has been one of the best and easiest of this remodel. Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to having it all done and sending you photos.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lea, for reminding us why we do what we do!

We are so happy you love your new kitchen.

In April 1999, Wayne Gretzky played his final game in the National Hockey League. Gretzky had played 20 seasons and was considered by many to be the greatest the sport had ever seen.

2) OMG, Myspace Is, Like, Totally Awesome!

Excitement spread like wildfire through American culture as the cable modem brought the promise of a faster future. In April 1999, we still had the strange robot music of the 56k dial-up modem ringing in our ears. This page would have taken a lot longer to load back then.

4) Do You Believe In Fame after Fame?

Cher’s April reign only lasted three days before TLC reached the apex of popularity, stealing the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

6) Goth Culture Gets a Careful Examination

For intentionally lying in court during a sexual harassment civil lawsuit, President Bill Clinton was cited with contempt of court. This was not a proud moment for anyone. By comparison, it has been a tame 15 years of presidential history!

8) Mind-Controlled Technology Hath Arrived…

On April 23rd, the BBC reported that newly discovered skull and tooth fragments may belong to a “human-like species” that lived 2.5 million years ago. There was a lot of controversy initially, but there has since been a general consensus that the Australopithecus garhi, as the species was named, is the most immediate ancestor to the human genus, Homo.

10) Eminem: Straight Blowin Up

The Hours by Michael Cunningham won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April, 1999. The book would later be made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep.

12) Pulitzer Prize for Drama

In April, we got yet another indication that American culture was infatuated with the genre of romantic comedy as Never Been Kissed, starring Drew Barrymore and David Arquette, hit the box offices.

14) Billy Joel Retires…Psych!

Surely, tears were flowing on the faces of day-time TV enthusiasts when NBC announced the cancellation of the long-running, iconic soap opera Another World. Only a few months later, the final episode would air, and, instead of watching Another World, fans would have to watch something else. Maybe the actual world?