Outdoor Home Lighting Design Tips and Ideas You’ll Love

Aside from making your home secure and safe, proper outdoor home lighting design can make the entire household have fun, relax, and stay active for a longer outdoor living. And if you are one who likes long visits from friends and family, making unique outdoor lighting is an excellent idea at sundown. It is amazing how people can quickly settle and stay for a long chat in the midst of lovely lights glowing in the dark.

With well-placed outdoor lights, your surroundings will stay beautiful, even when it rains. This should help you appreciate outdoor living as much as staying indoors. Low-voltage and inexpensive lights are pretty much available everywhere, so you can design the ultimate lighting scheme the way that you want without burning your budget.

Estimate Lighting Options

Before buying any lighting fixture, carefully assess your options. The easiest way to do so is to use a flashlight to simulate your actual outdoor lighting scheme. Good visualization should also help do the trick. Begin by going out after nightfall and test your flashlight in different directions. Apply this on all corners of your yard until you get the right illumination angle.

Plan the Lighting Scheme

Take note f the lighting details that you have set with your flashlight and draw a plan for the lighting scheme. This should help you visualize and pick the right pieces for every corner of your yard. Also plan the placement of the electrical wires with the aid of your house electrician. For convenience sake, put all outdoor lighting switches indoor.

Choose the Right Fixtures

There are various types of lighting pieces available in the market today. When picking the fixtures, keep in mind the following pointers.

• Diffused lights emulate moonlight, so they are best installed in elevated areas like posts, trees and top of walls.

• Lights pointing downwards will highlight your garden or landscape.

• Lights pointing upward will give a stunning effect on vines, shrubs and trees.

• Back lights will accentuate a particular structure, like a tree or wall.

Here are the ones that you should use.

• Accent lights like the Conic Pot – Tall by Offi and Co to emphasize your garden and landscape

• Mushroom lights to illuminate your paths and walkways

• Post lights like the Cambridge 80″/85″ Single/Four Lantern Planter by Patio Living Concepts to emphasize your gazebo and deck

• Floodlights to outline your trees and walls

• Wall lights like the Beacon Large Wall Lantern by Kenroy Home to highlight architectural designs

When picking light fixtures, as much as possible, use low-voltage watts to get more for less, and avoid glaring lights that could affect other properties.