After spending a fortune on your landscape, the desire to showcase it for all your neighbors and friends to see is only natural. With the effective use of outdoor house lights, your stunning landscape remains seen by all who pass by both day and night. To make your lawn picture-ready 24 hours a day, follow some practical design tips sure to shine the limelight on your captivating landscape.
Design with a purposeDon’t install outdoor lights just to do what others do. Set a clear objective. Know what you want to achieve with your landscape lighting and how you plan to reach this objective. Are you installing landscape lights to create a romantic evening ambience? Do you want to highlight a specific part of your garden? Or, are you installing them for illumination and security reasons?
To facilitate a design or function, you must determine your objective(s) and proceed with the relative light placements. Your design and functions determine the type and volume of lights you need to purchase for installation outside your house.
Know Where You want the Lights
When determining placement of your outdoor lights, you must assess your landscape’s overall layout. You must understand everything, from the foliage and vegetation, to decor, to the effects of peripheral lighting from nearby homes or buildings, which can reflect or absorb the illumination coming from your landscape lights. You need to study how light can possibly match, illuminate, and highlight specific locations in your yard, given the impact of any peripheral lighting.
Choose Appropriate Exterior Lights
Because so many varieties of outdoor house lights exist on the market, confusion can impede your ability to choose the best ones for your landscape objectives. While it might be fun to experiment on different outdoor light fixtures by yourself, your money can be wasted on exterior lighting that you don't particularly like once installed. In this case, it is wise to ask an expert’s opinion on which type of landscape lights you should purchase.
The price of exterior lights wholly depends on the lights' construction and their corresponding ingress protection (IP) rating. These can help determine how durable the lights are against water and other forces of nature. The higher the IP rating, the greater the durability of your of your lights.
Mind the Budget
A common choice for the practical homeowner, low-voltage lighting is relatively inexpensive and easy to install. However, if you seek an exclusive, stunning effect, you must invest in a higher quality of external lights. Not only will such lighting make your garden shine above the rest, it resists overheating and voltage overloading better than other lights, which can pose fire and safety hazards. High-quality lighting can also include full warranties for as long as 10 years.
Don’t hesitate to ask an expert’s opinion on how to better illuminate your landscape. A well-lit landscape can certainly raise a homeowner’s confidence as well as boost the property value in the market.
Sources:
All About Landscape Lighting, ThisOldHouse.com
How to Illuminate Your Yard with Landscape Lighting, HGTV.com