Outdoor Lighting Ideas And Tips To Illuminate Your Space

Whether it’s to beef up security around your property, highlight and accentuate your landscaping and home decor, or simply make it easier for you to find your way to the front door late at night, outdoor lighting is an essential element of the modern home. And outdoor lighting has certainly come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, both in terms of technology and design.

There are now as many options available for outdoor lighting as for indoor lighting. The wrong lighting can really ruin your outdoor living spaces, however, so it is important to get things right here from the outset. Follow our outdoor lighting ideas and tips for creating a sense of safety, comfort and beauty in your outdoor settings, and you can’t go wrong. Read on to find out more.

Outdoor lighting ideas for your backyard.

Plan, plan, plan Before you go out and purchase your outdoor lights, put together a plan of your garden and what sort of lighting scheme you want for it.

Instead of proceeding willy nilly and on an ad hoc basis, draw up a home outdoor lighting scheme before you do anything else and you will have a much easier time of creating some effective and attractive outdoor lighting at your place.

Questions to ask yourself include:

• What are the strengths of my yard and what features (trees, bushes, water fountains) do I want to highlight and make the focal point?
• Which walkways or stairs are poorly lit at night and require extra illumination?
• How am I going to wire all the lights together in the way that is safest and most economical?
• How bright are my lights going to be and what will be their power requirements.

Less really is more

Your outdoor lighting is something you want to get right the first time, then not have to think of it ever again. To achieve this, you are better off purchasing yourself a few, high quality products instead of many inferior ones.

• Cheap products may come with missing parts, poor handiwork and design – for example, the lights may not be properly sealed, so that moisture gets inside when it is wet and causes the light to blow.
• High quality products come with product guarantees, warranties and a high quality of workmanship, so you can be sure when buying you are getting a durable outdoor light that will be able to withstand whatever nature throws at it.

Even if the upfront cost is a lot more expensive, over the long run you will save a lot of money and effort by choosing the best.

Choose the right sort of light for the task at hand

Forget candles, outdoor lighting ideas are an easy way to get your backyard beautiful. If you want to illuminate the steps leading to your front porch after dark, then get some stair or step lights that are designed to throw light over each step. In order to highlight and accent the trees and shrubs in your yard, purchase some garden spots. They are available in a wide range of sizes and brightness levels, so that you can pick one that suits the height of the plant to be lit.

Pond lights, meanwhile will help make your beloved outdoor pond or water fountain the focal point of your garden, both during the day and at night. LED strip lighting is another great option for illuminating your steps, or your balcony or deck.

And you can try installing solar driveway lights near your garage to brighten up your driveway and the path from your car to your front door.
The bottom light: there are many different outdoor lighting styles available, make sure you get one that is appropriate for the lighting task or tasks you have in mind.

Opt for LED lighting

LED lighting is all the rage right now, and it is not hard to see why. Compared to the older incandescent and even halogen globes, it is so much more energy efficient and long lasting – and this makes LED bulbs a great option for outdoor lighting ideas that is going to be on all night, and that needs to stand up under all weather conditions.