You can transform the exterior of your home from ordinary to extraordinary with the help of a few strategically placed landscaping lights. Enhance the mood of your garden or extend your living area outdoors. Bring your home and your yard into harmony with each other, while helping them stand out from the dark night.
There are two basic forms of outdoor lighting - low voltage and line voltage. Low voltage is 12 volt lighting that the homeowner can install himself. Line voltage is 120 volt lighting, normally reserved for commercial projects and industrial buildings.
Low voltage lighting allows you to utilize a variety of fixtures in many locations to highlight the most important or dramatic features of your home's exterior. Low voltage lighting is designed to withstand the outdoors and is water resistant. Small fixtures and bulbs are unobtrusive, allowing passers-by to notice the beauty of your home, not your light fixtures.
The cable for low voltage lighting can be easily hidden, and moving the lights is simple should some of the landscape features change over time. No additional wiring is required, since low voltage lights can run using existing sockets.
Benefits of Outdoor Lighting
There are a number of tangible and intangible benefits to adding illumination to your outdoor surroundings.
o Enhance the appearance of your home. Use lights to highlight any unusual architectural textures or design elements.
o Expand living space. Bring the indoors outside by illuminating a deck, patio, or garden area. Lighting can make it enjoyable to spend your evenings enjoying the great outdoors.
o Provide added security. Illuminate entries and walkways to deter burglars or prowlers. Light pathways, stairs, or the edges of pools or ponds to prevent accidents.
o Dramatize your landscape. Highlight trees, flowers, shrubs, fences, and statuary.
o Increase your home's value. The addition of landscape lighting will only enhance its resale capabilities, in addition to making it the envy of every other homeowner on the block.
Several types of lighting can be used to achieve a variety of effects. Less tends to be more with outdoor lighting, and it is easy to get carried away.
To begin, drive around at night and take note of what others have done with their homes. Make notes or take pictures of the lighting design elements you like. If you are working with a lighting designer, ask for a list of his projects you can view at night. If possible, talk to some of his former clients to see if they are happy with the work that was done.
Once you begin to get a feel for the various types of lighting you would like to install on your own home, visit your yard at night. Take flashlights with you, and play with the light - on walls, behind trees. Be careful to note if any of the lights would be disturbing to you or your neighbors. Also take note of how the lights appear when viewed from inside your home, and whether they will cast any unwanted or blinding light into your house. As beautiful as outdoor lighting can be, you do not want it inadvertently placed where it will keep you awake at night.
Once you have completed these steps, you are ready to begin making your design plans. You can now begin to decide which effects you want to create, and where.
Lighting Effects
o Area Lighting: Also known as down lighting, fixtures mounted high on walls or in trees illuminate large areas. This type of lighting works well to light up backyards and patios, or to provide increased security. Lights placed lower can be used to light up flower beds and pathways.
o Up Lighting: These lights are facing upward, mounted low to the ground or sometimes even buried in the ground. Up lighting creates a theatrical effect for statues, trees, or other large architectural structures.
o Accent Lighting: These spot lights provide a concentrated beam to highlight flowers or shrubs.
o Grazing: Place light near interesting textures to bring them out, such as shingles, rock faces, rough bark, or intricate masonry work.
o Shadowing: Light an object from the ground, in front of the object, to cast interesting shadows on nearby walls.
o Silhouetting: Illuminate an object from the ground and behind to make it stand out in stark relief.
o Diffused Light: These pools of light are excellent for ground cover, decks, patios, and driveways.
o Moonlighting: Similar to area lighting but with softer, diffused lights to create shadows.
o Pool Lighting: Nothing makes a backyard more dramatic than underwater lights making the pool jump out of the night. Water lighting can also be used for ponds, fountains, waterfalls, and any other interesting water formations you have in your yard.
Remember, the whole point of blending lighting into your landscaping is to allow the rest of the world to see your home and yard at night in a way that highlights its beauty. It should look tasteful and graceful, not glaring and bright. Take care with how and where you choose to place your landscape lighting, and you will be able to transform your home into a nighttime wonderland.
