If you drive almost any residential street in DeKalb inside I-285, you are looking at the 1950s. Subdivision building exploded here after the war, and most of it was ranch houses: brick or painted brick, a low-pitched roof, a carport or one-car garage, and a picture window facing the street. Belvedere Park, just east of Decatur, started around 1952 and kept growing through the decade. Northwoods, in Doraville, went a different way with contemporary, California-influenced designs. The DeKalb History Center thought the ranch boom was important enough to start a Ranch House Initiative in 2009 to document it.
Outside the Perimeter the county gets newer. Tucker is mostly 1960s and 70s ranches and split-levels, then 1970s and 80s two-stories, many with daylight basements, in areas like Northlake, Idlewood, and Smoke Rise. Dunwoody boomed in the 1970s once I-285 arrived, and most of its houses are two-story brick traditionals from the 70s and 80s on roughly half-acre lots, clustered around the Colonial Williamsburg-style Dunwoody Village. Toward Stone Mountain and Lithonia on the east side you find more recent subdivisions, and that is where HOAs are most common. Inside I-285, most older streets have no HOA at all, so the only design rules are yours.
That variety is exactly why we quote from photos. A 1955 brick ranch might be 80 feet of roofline at eight or nine feet up, done before lunch. A Dunwoody two-story with a steep front gable needs taller ladders and more care. Both get the same treatment: LEDs cut to each run, clipped to the shingles or gutters, a timer set before we leave, and a January takedown. See how our roofline lighting works.
DeKalb has plenty of December traditions to plan around. Tucker lights its tree at the Church Street greenspace, the city of Stone Mountain has its parade on Main Street, and Decatur lights the tree on the square. If you want the house done before the family visits start, get on the calendar early. We have been hanging Atlanta's Christmas lights since 2019, and the pre-Thanksgiving dates always go first.
