Your landscaping matters; it can either enhance or spoil its curb appeal. Outdoor lighting has a significant impact on your home’s landscaping and overall appearance. As per the U.S. Houzz Landscaping Trends Study in 2017, majority of the homeowners consider outdoor lighting as one of the most essential elements in the front yard to enhance the curb appeal.
However, to make the most of it, you must know when and why to install outdoor lighting.
So, what is the right time to hire a landscape lighting designer and start the installation of the outdoor lighting? The answer is, it depends. There are times when it is easy for us to be involved in installing outdoor lighting at the very beginning. It saves us time as well as money. Other times, it is easier for us to do outdoor lighting installation once the landscaping is completed.
Outdoor Lighting is More than a Pretty Feature
The backyard is the best area of any home. Many people spend years customizing the landscaping to their exact style and consume much of their time there. Everything you see in your outdoor space is the outcome of hundreds of hours’ worth of effort and landscaping designer. You have formed your own personal habitat; a spot where you can sit back and just relax. If it sounds like you, you are not alone. Almost 70 percent of the homeowners say that they want to utilize their outdoor space for leisure and relaxation while many take the time to make the perfect space to do so. Though, not all the things you place in your backyard should be for visual purposes only.
The outdoor lighting, or more precisely called, landscaping lighting, for instance, is installed by a lot of backyard enthusiasts to highlight specific features of their home and surroundings. While these are installed for that reason, that is not the only reason. Outdoor lighting offers numerous benefits.
One of the most obvious benefits is that outdoor lighting helps accent specific parts of the property. With a range of lighting fixture styles and types available, it is easy to find an ideal setup for your requirements. Statues, bird baths, and trees are some of the elements that you should light up to add an uplifted ambiance you have formed.
The advantages of outdoor lighting are not limited to aesthetics and ambiance only. Think of safety factor as well. If your backyard or garden has a pond, for instance, then you should have the pond lighting not just to exaggerate the water feature of the pond but also to make sure that your guests don’t experience an unexpected swim. Even if they are aware of its location, they could still easily get a wrong step and end up soaking wet. Path lighting, patio lighting, and pond lighting are just some of the few areas where the outdoor lighting offers aesthetics as well as a safety measure.
The other key benefit to install outdoor lighting is added home security. A faintly lit home gives burglars and intruders the chance to sneak through your backyard and into the home, shed, garage, or anything else. Installing outdoor lights, whether continuous or motion sensor can be a smart way to prevent potential burglars.
How to Install Outdoor Lighting?
So far, we discussed when and why you should install the outdoor lighting. Even if you understand that but don’t know what mistakes to avoid while installing these outdoor features, chances are you are going to miss the most of their benefits. Here are some of the tips to avoid those mistakes and make the most of your outdoor lighting.
- Blinding Glare:
What you don’t like your outdoor lighting to do is to make anyone blind coming to your home. In both lawn fixtures and mounted features, if the light bulb, for instance, can be viewed, a viewer may likely to experience a glare. Lantern style porch lights and post-top fixtures having a glass commonly yield glare and can make it hard to look at your home. Select the fixtures with tinted or frosted glass diffusers, or the ones designed exclusively to defend the light source against onlookers.
- Proximity to Plants:
A lot of homeowners install outdoor lighting to highlight their landscaping’s foliage. This often generates interesting silhouettes and shadows, while adding dimension to the front at night. To prevent unseemly glare on the trees and plants or the possibility of them growing around the lights, ensure proper positioning of the fixture.
- Over-Illumination:
Excessive mounted lights and path lights with high wattage over-enhance your backyard and make it seem like a helicopter’s spotlight on your home. Don’t install path lights lining every inch of the front work way. Keep reasonable distance as minimal degree of illumination is the most aesthetically-pleasing.
Outdoor lighting is a popular trend, adding more visibility around your exterior doorways; these fixtures come in a range of finishes and styles to match your home’s landscaping needs.
