When it comes to lighting up their living spaces, most people concentrate more on the inside of the house than the outside. It is natural because we are aware that we will be spending most of the nights inside the house, but what if we could make the outside as beautiful as the inside? The choice of outdoor lighting makes a big difference between a drab garden and a magnificent garden. You should not be limited to enjoying your garden only during the day when the sun is out. With the correct landscape lighting, you can enjoy your garden well into the night and even host guests for outdoor dinners. Now, how do you choose the best lights for your garden? We have some landscape lighting ideas for you:
One of the most important things to consider is the aesthetics of your garden during the day. It is during the day that you get to enjoy most of the outdoors, so it only makes sense to choose lighting that does not dilute your garden’s beauty during the day. Outdoor lighting is meant to decorate your garden during the day at night. When choosing your garden lights, make sure that they compliment your garden during the day and the night. String lights, post lights, and lanterns, both fixed and hanging, can act as decorative pieces during the day and serve as decorative lighting during the night.
It is essential to predetermine the number of watts you need for your outdoor lighting. To calculate the wattage, you need to multiply the square footage of your garden by 1.5. So, if you have a 70 square feet garden, then you need 105 watts to light it up. Calculating the wattage will help you achieve optimal lighting for your garden and save you unnecessary power usage. An excellent idea for high wattage and low power consumption would be outdoor LED lighting. One of the benefits of using LED lights is that they require very little maintenance and bulb changes, saving you the costs and hassle of constantly changing bulbs. You can choose LED path lights and floodlights to brighten up parts of your garden. Be careful, however, not to make your garden too bright with too many LEDs.
To achieve a beautifully lit garden, you need to mix up the types of outdoor lighting that you choose to use. You will want to integrate the three kinds of lighting; task, ambient, and accent to make your garden lighting complete. Each type of lighting has a specific objective, so it is essential to know what kind of light goes where. Task lights are bright, and their sole purpose is to aid your visibility at night. They include security lights, pathway lights, and entry point lights. Ambient lights are what you would call general lights. They provide a comfortable level of lighting to a living space without being too bright or too dim. Ambient lights include outdoor wall lights and porch ceiling hanging lights. Accent lights are the jewelry to any living space. They are a fashion statement. The primary purpose of accent lights is to decorate and inject a bit of personality into a living area. Some examples of accent lights include string lights, underwater pool lights, fountain lights, and glowing furniture.
Landscape lights do not always have to be permanent. Whether you live in a rented space or you just like flexibility, portable lights are the best option for you. Compact lights offer flexibility and save you the hardwiring and fixing costs that come with conventional landscape lighting. Portable lights can either be plug-in lights or rechargeable lights and can be used to light up temporary entertainment setups in your garden. If you are hosting guests for an outdoor dinner, you do not have to worry about fixing the lamps. Get yourself the remote controlled rechargeable ball light or the bright rechargeable table lamp, and enjoy your outdoor dining.
One of the primary reasons to light up the outdoors is security. Outdoor LED lighting comes in handy when you want bright security lights with low power consumption. You want to see whatever is going on outside, and you also want to have clear visibility when walking around the garden. It is essential to be practical when it comes to security lighting. Ensure the pathways are well-lit with post lamps, floodlights, or spotlights. You should also ensure that all your entry points are well lit. Fix security lights on either side of your gate, your garage door, your front door, and your back door. For the doors, you can alternatively use a single light just above the door frame. Motion sensor lights and floodlights would also come in handy when strategically placed to point at the gate and the driveway.
When choosing your outdoor lighting, you want to have in mind the fixtures in your garden and the size of your garden. An oversized wall lantern on your doorway is all it takes to reduce the decorative effect of the rest of the lighting. To choose the correct light and the right size, you need first to visualize what you want your garden to look like including the fixtures. With a clear image in mind, you can then make the right choice in the type of lighting you want and the size of the lamps.
Do you have a statue or a fountain in your garden, maybe a beautiful tree or a pool? You should highlight it with low-intensity lights so that its beauty does not get lost when darkness sets in. Illuminating a fountain, statue or a tree using bright lights will create harsh shadows and ruin its beauty, so it is essential to use low-intensity lights placed at different angles and distance. In the case of a fountain and a pool, colored bulbs add to the beauty when the light reflects off of the water. Underwater colored lights in a pool turn it into a decoration piece when the sun sets.
Outdoors lighting experiences all the weather changes, so it is essential to have that in mind when choosing your lighting. It is necessary to go for all-weather lamps and lights to avoid uninstalling them during harsh weather conditions like winter and spring. You want to go for lights with a covered bulb. Floodlights, lanterns, post lights, and motion sensor lights are good examples of all-weather lights. You can, however, use lights with uncovered bulbs on your porch, in a gazebo, or in any sheltered outdoor space.
Lighting up your outdoors does not have to be complicated or tedious. With the right lighting choices and the tips in this list, you can achieve a beautiful outdoor space that matches the beautiful interior of your home. A beautifully lit garden creates more living space for you. You can spend more time outside just relaxing or reading up at night. You can even host guests for dinner parties outside as you enjoy the beautiful night skies.
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