Guide To Exterior Lighting

Exterior lighting can add ambience to your front yard, back yard, garden, or patio while increasing the value of your home. Exterior lighting also adds to the safety and accessibility of your lawn. Standard outdoor lighting devices, including motion detectors, have been proven to be deterrents to break-ins and vandalism.

Exterior lighting can allow you to enjoy your lawn, garden, and patios around the clock, rather than just in daylight hours. Accent lighting can be a great way to showcase the focal points of your lawn and garden, while ground lighting can illuminate your driveway, sidewalk, or other walkways.

The current trend for exterior lighting is to aim for a softer, more natural feel. Choose lighting that has more of a moonlit feel, or go for soft, warmer colors. When installing exterior lighting, remember that the less you can see the cords and fixtures, the better and more subtle your lighting design will be. Use your existing landscape, plants, and rocks to obscure your fixtures and cords. Also remember, if you are burying the cording, make sure to bury them deep enough so the wiring will not be disturbed by burrowing or digging animals.

Need a Lighting Contractor? Find Lighting Contractors in your area: Your zip code or city:

There are several options for choosing exterior lighting for your home. One place to start is to choose a focal point in your yard or garden. Use exterior lighting to highlight your focal point. These accent lights are also ideal for outdoor pools, fountains, trees, statues, or waterfalls. When choosing lighting, you have several options for the style of illumination.

Up lighting, or lights focused upward and traditionally placed in walkways or in the ground, can be used for dramatic effect. These types of lights are most effective for highlighting purposes. Down lighting or lights that shine down are primarily used for safety purposes. These lights are used to illuminate walkways, paths, and driveways. Area lighting is used to illuminate specific areas of your lawn or garden.

These are typically brighter and more focused lights. And ambient lighting, sometimes called moonlighting, is used to mimic the light of the moon. Ambient lighting is typically very subtle and used to create a mood. This type of lighting combines a mixture of up and down lighting, and often involves fixtures hidden within the landscape. Ambient lighting is the most subtle and natural of any type of exterior lighting.

Find a local Lighting contractor.
View more Lighting articles.
Add your own Home Improvement article.