Landscape lighting accentuates the your homes best architectural features while also providing your property with added security and safety. Illuminating the base of your garden, trimmed trees, the gate surrounding your home and the walkway leading to your front door enhances the beauty of your property and is sure to garner admiration from your neighbors.
Lighting your property is easy and can even be inexpensive while increasing the value of your home. A few factors to consider before heading to your neighborhood hardware or garden supply store are light placement, illumination extent, your specific needs, and of course every property’s lighting must have.
Three Types of Landscape Lighting
Lighting is placed in three styles that dramatically open up your property, making it seem bigger.
- Moon lighting, sometimes called down lighting, are trendy and stylish and often used in posh neighborhoods in metropolitan high end properties. Moon lighting illuminates in much the same way that the moons glow spreads across a larger, less focused area. Moon lighting is similar to candle light. Its soft, expanded effect can be attained by mounting a light in a downward facing position from either the undermost part of your roof, or even a tall tree. You’ll notice that your landscape is much brighter, but the off-white light is warm and welcoming.
- Up-lighting has more of an intense, focused lighting that is bright, dramatic and acute. This is a common lighting that is seen most often in properties with any kind of lighting. Part of the appeal to up-lighting is the ease of setup. In order to achieve the dramatic effect of bright, direct illumination, simply decide which parts of your landscape you’d like to accentuate. Affix the light on the ground at the base of a tree facing up toward the branches, or have the lights focus up your homes front walls, columns or garden.
- Cross-lighting is also quite common and adds a suggestive expanse to your property’s landscape. Cross-lighting is similar to up-lighting, in that the light fixture is mounted to a ground based upward position, however with cross-lighting the illumination is at an angle, where it crosses the bright beams of another light that is also affixed to the ground at the same but opposite angle. Cross-lighting is beautiful and creates a remarkable depth to your landscape that is simply picturesque.
Landscape Lighting Designs To Avoid
After you make your decision on which design best highlights your home and landscape, take a few factors into account. Wind, rain, passer-byers, pets, and time can change the position of your lights.
If your lights are placed in an upward position, the weather and general wear and tear with time can push the lights beam lower, casting a potential unsightly or unwanted glare into your homes windows, into the street, against a gate or fence or onto another unfocused area of your yard that is unappealing. In some instances, getting the opinion of others is important in order to avoid potentially creating a blind spot for guests or passer-byers.
It’s critical that these remarkable improvements that you make to your property highlight the aesthetic details of your landscape, rather than wash out a view of the sky or aim clumsily at an arbitrary area of your property.
Make sure to aim your beams carefully, focusing on where the light will illuminate once the sun goes down. Inspect your lights at night and be sure to continue to monitor your lights and adjust them as often as possible in order to correct any light fixture falls. Your mounting equipment may become loose and may need to be tightened every two weeks to four weeks.
Identify Your Needs
All landscapes are unique. You should consider the parts of your yard that you’d like to highlight and why. Perhaps you often host guests and would like to illuminate boundaries of your yard in order to avoid painful falls or trips. Blind spots in your yard may lead to a less defined party area.
Outdoor lighting often deters potential intruders who would otherwise find cover in the darkness. Perhaps you want to increase the value in your home or make your landscape more appealing. No matter the reason, outdoor lighting draws attention to your yard, increases general security and invites you to host more events in your yard.
6 Must-Haves To Accentuate In Your Yard
- Driveways and paths are great to highlight because they’re inviting, define boundaries and help you drive into your driveway when it’s late at night and ensure that walking up to your home does not include potential trips or falls, or accidental steps onto your lawn or garden.
- Doors are always an essential highlight. Place lights on either side of your front, side or back door for added grandiose to your entryways.
- Stairs and steps are similar to pathways, but may even be more important. Steps tend to provide shadows and depth to outdoor lighting and can also act as a safety measure from trips or falls for guests and family members who are approaching your home at night.
- Gazebos or constructed buildings in your yard are wonderfully detailed by outdoor lighting. The illuminated beam can highlight these areas in a beautiful way that makes any social gathering or intimate get together special and sentimental.
- Statues, fountains, ponds and walls are also wonderful features in your landscape that should be accentuated. Often times, the unique shadows from the lighting on architectural focal points add an artistic charm to your landscape.
The Benefits of Using LED Lights
LED lights and halogen lights are two, if not, the most highly used outdoor lights. LED lights are becoming more popular, however, due to the sturdy build of the lights and the longevity that comes with the durability of LEDs.
LED lights have a longevity that can’t be compared with any other, lasting up to 100,000 hours. LED lights can also withstand harsh weather like snow and rainstorms with heavy winds and even some natural disasters such as earthquakes.
The Benefits of Using Solar Lights
With solar lighting’s versatility, green, energy saving features, it’s no wonder why solar lighting is winning over the hearts and minds of those determining which kind of lights they’d like to place in their yard.
Solar lights are cost effective and don’t require you to turn them on. They don’t need to be timed, and they cost nothing after purchase. Solar lights are also ecofriendly and don’t have cables that have to be hidden and plugged awkwardly into outlets. They’re simple, easy and ready for installation straight out of the box.
Get Started Today – It’s Easy
Outdoor lighting can accentuate the areas and architectural features in your yard that you’re most proud of. Lighting increases security and safety and welcomes social gatherings to your yard in the nighttime hours. Outdoor lighting is easy, fun and can increase the value of your home. And of course, outdoor lighting is simply beautiful.
