Most of the guests you invite over, in summer, would like to spend an evening in your garden. Whether that’s a family get-together or having friends around for a small drink party.
Overall, the first impression of your home is determined by the way the outside of your home looks like.
Alongside the outdoor furniture, gardening accessories and other exterior decors, outdoor lighting offers a presentable look to your home.
Indeed,outdoor lighting turns your backyard garden into an exotic and inviting space. And surely you will be just buzzing to try out various exciting ideas for outdoor lighting.
But where do you begin?
Before you grab an outdoor fixture and decide a spot to affix it, let me tell you some workable and sensational scenarios.
Here are 15 exciting ideas that will help you to illuminate your home gorgeously.
Front Door Lighting
You can choose hanging lights or pendants if you have tall entryways and porches. Instead, the space over the door may look too empty.
Another exciting idea is to use pier lights. Mount a pier light on some kind of post near the front door. Alongside placing near the front door, pier light can be used in the walkways toward the main door of the home.
A walkway illuminated with pier lights would offer a tranquil experience when walking up to the front door.
1. Landscape Lighting
Well lights, post lantern lights, and the path lights enhance the landscape of your garden significantly.
Post lantern and well lights, even during the day when they are not yet lit up, would fetch your attention to the lush green landscape.
Landscape lighting offers to host prolonged gatherings, extended even after evening and present a mesmerizing look to your backyard.
Moreover, appropriate lighting in your garden also reduces the security threats especially if they are motion-sensored.
You can also choose lights that would automatically lit up when the sun goes down.
3. Outdoor lighting for paths
In order to make your paths having unwanted focal points, place lights on both sides of the path and vary their distance.
Placing the light on either side would not only create exciting look but it will enhance the comfort of your guests too.
Keeping lights uniform and symmetrical will make the path more noticeable rather than the other seeable things in your garden.
While fixing lights keep in account that the moonlight provides extra assistance to night parties. So, place the light in such way that your paths look like gentle hints rather than directional arrows.
In order to avoid unnecessary and annoying glare, keep the path lights below eye level. You can put lights in the plants alongside your path highlighting the variety of shapes and colors.
4. Highlight your decking area
Highlighting your decking area with appropriate lighting create a sense of larger space and enhanced security in your home.
These lights also help to blur the unnecessary line between your doors and outdoor as well.
You can enhance intimate feeling simply by adding an outdoor dining table to have a restful evening meal with your better half and kids.
Hang an overhead light attached to the pole or a sturdy branch of the nearby tree. A downward hanged light will not create annoying glare to the eyes creating more gripping atmosphere.
Alongside use small but waterproof floor lights to lit the land. This will help you to notice any harmful insect that may cause an uninviting nuisance otherwise.
5. Outdoor Staircase Lighting
Staircase holds two options to be lit stunningly. They are placing lights either on the rise or on the side.
In the first option, on the riser, lights are placed on the vertical portion of the steps. These lights illuminate the step below.
The second option, on the side, allows you to fix lights on the sides of stairs. Lights placed in this pattern lit the upper surface of each step.
6. Lighting for water features
Illuminate your water feature by placing well-rated waterproof lights within the water body. Place the lights upward direction in the middle of the water feature. Make sure that the lights are placed underwater.
Mount small lights pointing toward the waterfalls and if enough room is available to put some colorful LED lights behind the falling waters.
For a more subtle approach, hang some lights onto the sturdy branches of nearby trees pointing downward to the water feature. It will impart a more intimate look.
7. Types and temperature of outdoor lights
Most designers avoid cool lights and recommend that it is best to use warm lights showcasing your home rather than creating a light show. Warm lights also create serene and unruffled feelings.
Designers also recommend using various fixtures rather than creating uniformity and symmetry. They suggest taking bold decisions while choosing lighting fixtures.
It is best to choose from the wide range of fixtures, area lights, step lights, and bollards or post lights.
Associating a timer is also a great idea. A timer, with confirmation from the photovoltaic cell, turns on or off the lights. You can manually adjust the timing of lights to turn on or off.
8. Outdoor ceiling light ideas
Besides hanging lights also try some unique idea for your outdoor ceiling lights.
Usually, hanging lights, most commonly named as ceiling lights, are used as ceiling lights. However, some other possibilities still exist.
Try some recessed lights. You can use recessed light as same as are used inside but with a covered area.
Flush-mount and semi-flush-mount lights are best examples. Flush lights hanged with ceiling flush against the ceiling but the fixture drops down toward the floor.
Semi-flush-mounted lights are attached directly to the ceiling and then expand below.
9. Illuminating the statues
In order to illuminate a statue in the garden sue warm lights. Warm light has additional advantages, such as warm lights soften the features and do not create unnecessary shadows.
You should use at least two lights to lit your statute. Using two light simultaneously will cut back o any harsh shadow.
However, you need to make sure that there won’t be any shrubbery getting the way of light pointed toward the statue.
10. lighting to highlight shrubbery
The best idea to illuminate shrubbery in your garden or backyard is to place a footlight around two feet in front of the shrubbery. Then, point that footlight upward throwing a little part of light on the plant.
Another option is to place uplights behind the shrubs or plants making them far apart too so that you get pools of light rather than a light-flooded area.
11. Garage Lighting (Exterior)
Garage needs to be illuminated well more than other outdoor areas because you would like to notice all details of your vehicle like oil seepage etc before you ride.
So, illuminate your garage with floodlights. Floodlights are typically placed higher lining them up with the highest point of the garage.
Floodlights placed in the garage can serve in two ways; to lit the garage or you can get assistance to light up the outdoor basketball court as well.
12. lighting to highlight trees
For trees, you should buy hooded lights to prevent a large area flooded with unnecessary lighting. Grab three footlights and place them in a circle around the tree instead fixing a single light in front.
While choosing lights to keep in account the height of the plant. As flood lights are better for taller trees and the bullets or spotlights, having a narrow field, are best for shorter trees.
However, shorter trees require more than single light to light them up sufficiently.
When trees are lit from below and not illuminating the trunk, it would present more than a worse scenario. Make sure that the trunk is also illuminated well.
13. Color lighting
In order to keep away insects of numerous kinds its best to use colored lights, particularly yellow lights. Insects are unable to see the yellow light on the first go.
However, avid using a yellow light to illuminate a shrubbery or any other plant because it will create a look as if the plant is dried.
You can use other colorful lights but keep in mind that the lights do not create a sense of light show or a concert.
14. Avoid iron fixtures
While picking your lighting apparatuses, avoid from the fixtures of iron since rain will cause these to rust after some time.
Rather settle on lighting made with steel, brass or copper. A patina may create after some time however they’ll last far longer and cost less.
15. Maintenance of outdoor lighting
It is much important to keep up your outdoor lights. It requires your utmost attention and a little know-how. You need to check all fixtures several times in a year and check if they have developed rust or condensation.
In order to avoid condensation and rust apply some greasy material on the corroded parts and clean them carefully.
Conclusion
Check all wires and fittings regularly either once a month or biannually. If you notice any wire peeled off call your electrician immediately to prevent others suffering from short circuit.
