Landscape Lighting for Your Home: Enhance Beauty, Security & Curb Appeal
Have you ever hosted an outdoor social event on your patio, and as the evening grew old, your patio started to feel as though it were closed in? Landscape lighting is a great way to open up an outdoor space and bring your landscape to life at night! Landscape lighting provides a comfortable ambience that broadens the use of your outdoor space to include the twilight hours! It also improves the security, curb appeal, and value of your home! Proper and effective design of landscape lighting is crucial to providing these benefits.
The Value of Landscape Lighting
1. Improve Home Security
Feeling safe and secure is a priority to all of us wherever we may be, but particularly when we are at home! Landscape lighting is an excellent way to boost the security of your home! When you drive down a dark street, sometimes it can be unsettling not knowing what’s in the dark. When you drive down a street with lamps posted at regular intervals, you feel much more secure because you can see what’s ahead of and around you. Lighting the exterior of your home can have the same effect. When you and your neighbors can clearly see your home’s exterior, it is quite easy to notice if something is wrong.
2. Enhance Curb Appeal
Landscape lighting on the exterior of your home also creates a more welcoming look to your home in the mornings and evenings, as it is clearly visible. It highlights the unique features of your home: the rooflines, stonework, large trees, and walkways that make your home special. When desirable features are lit, it improves the look of your entire home!
3. Increase Property Value
Aren’t all us willing to pay more for a home that has a feeling of security and looks beautiful even during the twilight hours? Landscape lighting can bring a great home value return on investment! The beauty of the landscaping and architecture of the home can be highlighted to showcase the unique comforts that your home provides!
How to Design Effective Landscape Lighting
While the intensity and amount of lighting a homeowner wants is mostly personal preference, there are some good rules we try to follow when designing the landscape lighting for homes.
1. Keep It Simple
A warm and welcoming lighting effect is preferable over excessive brightness that resembles an airport runway. Focus on balance and spacing to achieve a natural look.
2. Start with Architectural Features
Begin by illuminating foundational aspects of your home, such as rooflines, gables, chimneys, and columns. This approach creates a balanced lighting foundation and enhances the structure’s overall appeal.
3. Prioritize Entryways & High-Use Areas
Ensure that key access points like front doors, patios, pathways, and decks are well-lit for safety and functionality. Practical lighting in these areas enhances visibility and usability.
4. Tie It All Together!
Just as houses are different from one another with their architecture and building makeup so is true with the landscapes around them. Whether it’s 100 year old Oak tree, fish pond, stone retaining wall, or a Japanese Maple you planted when you first moved in—landscapes present great lighting opportunities as they mature. In this final part of designing your landscape lighting, we seek to connect your landscape with your home.
By providing this systematic lighting, we can tie in your landscaping to your home so it can be appreciated at all times of the day, and the night! Whether it be for increased sense of security or adding curb appeal, you can’t go wrong with adding a touch of landscape lighting to your home. Check out pictures from a few recent projects here!
Published By: Anthony Campbell II
