Landscape lighting can highlight your home’s best features and create a welcoming ambiance for guests. It also improves your property’s safety by preventing small threats like tripping and larger ones like burglaries.
However, deciding which landscape lights suit your yard can take time and effort.
Think About Your Home’s Curb Appeal
A well-manicured lawn, healthy plants, and thoughtful design choices are a great way to improve your home’s curb appeal. Landscape lighting highlights these elements in a nighttime showcase, adding beauty and sophistication to your property.
Adding a touch of drama is as easy as illuminating a tall tree or other feature with an uplight fixture that illuminates upward. This technique can highlight a sculptural shape at night, creating an attractive silhouette that enhances your landscaping and creates an upscale appearance for your home.
Hardscape lights, which install on or into structures and wash surfaces with light, are another option for enhancing your hardscaping. This type of lighting is particularly effective for highlighting walls and fences around entertaining areas, such as patios and firepits. It can also bring a touch of luxury to a poolside gazebo or outdoor living room. These fixtures are often available in various colors, beam widths, and brightness, so you can easily find the look that suits your landscaping.
Think About Your Family’s Safety
One of the main benefits of landscape lighting is that it illuminates safety hazards like stairs, walkways, and deck railings. This prevents people from tripping and falling, which can be dangerous for seniors and children. Additionally, it’s a great way to illuminate areas prone to intruders, such as pathways and entryways around the home.
Aesthetics are also crucial in landscape lighting St. Louis MO, as different types of bulbs, reflector shapes, and wattage levels can affect how much light is distributed. Choosing the right bulb type, color temperature, and beam width for your yard will create a more visually appealing look.
For example, LED lights use 90% less energy than traditional halogen bulbs and don’t attract insects. This means you’ll have fewer bugs flying around your landscape lighting system and will enjoy more time outdoors without having to worry about pests. This can make a big difference to your family’s quality of life.
Think About Your Lighting Needs
A well-lit yard not only looks great but also provides safety and security. Proper lighting can deter crime and illuminate areas that might be hazardous, such as steps or a walkway leading to your front door. It can also draw attention to prized plants and trees in your yard and make the house look beautiful at night.
There are many different landscape lights, so choosing the right one for your needs is essential. For example, flood lights are perfect for illuminating dark corners of the yard and can dramatically change how your home looks at night. Soft or wash lights may be more appropriate for highlighting plants, statues, and other hardscapes.
It’s also essential to consider the brightness of landscape lights, measured in lumens. A higher number means a brighter light. You want to ensure enough light for your purposes but not so much that it becomes glaring or overpowering.
Think About Your Lighting Budget
Adding landscape lighting is a great way to extend your time outdoors after dark. It helps improve safety by illuminating stairs, steps, walkways, and driveways and can make it easier to entertain with barbecues and drinks well into the night.
There are many ways to illuminate your landscape, from highlighting dramatic shapes in plants or trees to lighting up a hardscape feature like a stone wall or fountain. It’s essential to think about your budget before you start planning out the layout of your lights.
Low-voltage lighting systems typically use LED bulbs, which are more energy efficient and can last longer than halogen or fluorescent bulbs. They can cost more than incandescent bulbs, but you’ll save on electricity costs in the long run. You’ll also need a transformer, stakes to hold the fixtures in place, and cables to carry current from the transformer to the light bulbs.