How Outdoor Lighting Can Transform Your Yard

IMAGE SOURCE: ENVATO

Adding outdoor lights, both for security and beauty, is a great way to turn your outdoors into usable living space. Outdoor lighting can be either solar or wired, multi-colored, or white/gold. Finally, outdoor lighting can come with sensors that turn the light on when someone or something gets close.

Safety

Adding outdoor landscape lighting will make it easy to access all of the paths and the outbuildings in the yard. Even better, having lights shining around your home will encourage anything that skulks in the shadows to find a different place to hide.

According to Unique Outdoor Texas, a company that works with outdoor landscape lighting in Houston TX, outdoor landscape lighting provides warm light equivalent to that of standard halogen and incandescent light and an average of 75% less energy than comparable halogen or incandescent landscape lights.

With adequately placed lighting, you can also reduce the risk of tripping hazards. For example, a deck built with lighting built beside or even within the steps can let folks unfamiliar with the space to avoid a tumble.

Highlight What You Value

Boosting your outdoor lighting can include placing spotlights. This can add a spotlight to an outdoor sculpture, a fountain, or a flag. If you love to garden, adding lights to a particularly pretty flowerbed or rose bush can draw the eye to whatever is blooming.

Increase Access

With the right lighting, you can create a path to your back fence, your fire pit, outdoor buildings, or a pergola. To keep folks that you don’t want in your yard, put a permanent light on the outside of any gates and a motion light on the inside.

Of course, the gate is locked, but anyone who gets through the gate gets flashed by the motion sensor. Hopefully, they will leave, but if they don’t, you’re at least aware.

Overall Lighting Vs. Highlights and Path Lighting

While you may want a light high on the wall for overall lighting, try to balance the high source with a lower-placed light to balance the shadows and avoid glare.

Additionally, consider adding color to your overall lighting. Bright white light from a spotlight will have an unfriendly, institutional feel. Yellow or gold lights can not only look warmer, but they can make it easier to control pests such as mosquitoes.

If you choose to put in a DIY bug-zapping light, take care to turn off or unplug this light before you turn in for the night. While these lights can be useful for killing pesky mosquitoes, they can also catch large moths and become fire hazards. The last thing you want to face first thing in the morning is a burned fence because your bug-zapper light cremated a big moth.

Create Conversation Spots

Once you have a bug control system in place, proper lighting can create wonderful conversation spots. Kids with friends can set up a tent and tell spooky stories while enjoying a well-lit path to the house. When it’s time to have a big gathering, you can set out camping chairs at various points in the yard and a screen tent so guests can easily gather at multiple points in your yard.

Turn Your Pool Into an Oasis

A quality outdoor lighting plan is critical to anyone who invests in a pool. Whether your pool is above ground or underground, you’re going to need light to sit around the pool. A well-lit path to the pool can protect bare feet from stumbles and stubs.

Best of all, the water in the moonlight is inherently beautiful. Invite guests to relax, soak their feet, or just stretch out and watch the water.

Don’t Forget the Front Yard

Make sure to incorporate lighting into your front walks, your front plantings, and your driveway. Visitors will have an easier path into your home if every step of the way offers illumination. Within your front yard, take care to make sure that your porch and deck are either well-sealed or that the space under your front step is well-lit.

This will not only prevent the risk of human pests, but a quality light that illuminates the space under your porch will keep skunks, possums, and other unwelcome visitors from settling in and making themselves at home under your porch. If your neighborhood is near water, consider adding a motion sensor light, fully wired into this space.

Every aspect of your home can be made more beautiful, user friendly, and safe with quality lighting. Highlight your flag and your favorite plantings. Show off the paths to your outdoor seating area. Enjoy the outdoor life!