Installing Outdoor Home Lighting Fixtures: Where to Begin?

Good lighting makes a walkway easy to navigate after dark, gives security and safety, and creates a welcoming ambience for you and your guests. You just have to exercise flexibility on choosing and installing outdoor home lighting fixtures.

Bright, standard-voltage lights, like a post light or under-eave porch light, add strong illumination to repel intruders or allow you to walk without tripping when carrying your groceries from the car. Still, they might end up too glaring for entertaining. Low-voltage lights are mellower, and yet are still bright enough for most evening activities.

For many patios, a mixture of the two types of lighting is ideal. If you already have strong standard-voltage lighting, then consider installing dimmer switches so you can soften the light when the event calls for it.

Types of Lights

Path lights like the San Juan 60″ Floor Lamp with 2″ with Chili Linen Sunbrella Shade Fabric by Patio Living Concepts usually come with shades that produce a wide and downward spread of light.

Lantern-type lights like the Moonlite 64″ Floor Lamp with 3″ with White/Bronze Globe by Patio Living Concepts will both illuminate your paths and provide  general lighting.

Floodlights or spotlights can be swiveled to point at a feature, or to any area in the yard.

Brick lights are shaped to resemble a patio paver and are installed right in the soil where they point diffused light upward.

Rope lights are strings of tiny and evenly spaced bulbs that can be hung from a tree like Christmas lights.

Deck lights like the Plateau Large Wall Lantern by Kenroy Home can be fastened to a vertical structure like an overhead roof or a trellis.

Economic Option

If you are looking for an inexpensive option for patio lighting, then a kit that contains 10 or more lights, a programmable transformer, and all the connectors and cables that you need would be your best pick. If you want to install various lights, or if you do not like the lights that come with the kit, you will have to purchase the new components separately.

When choosing a transformer, make sure that you carefully check out its specs first. You can also consult a salesperson to be sure that it is strong enough to supply power to all the lights that you will install in your outdoor space.