Accent Lighting Can Improve Your Home's Property Value
There’s no major secret behind landscape accent lighting. It’s using the lights in your garden to accent the trees, shrubs, and other plants and structures at night. But this is easier said than done. Installing the lights you will need to put in a soft touch, because as the name implies, the lights should accent the feature you are lighting, not overpower or dominate it. If you do your research and look around for ideas and inspiration, you can create the right effects in your garden. There is no substitute for accent lighting when it’s properly done. It can create stunning effects in your garden, provide some functional light, and even make your garden safer.
When you are installing accent lighting the first rule is that less is more. Do not try to light up the entire structure that you are targeting. Instead use less powerful bulbs to play with creating silhouettes and cast shadows in different directions. With accent lights you can highlight, conceal, reveal, and dramatize different plants and structures to your heart’s content.
When you’re planning out how to light your different landscape structures, make sure to not to forget to light your paths and walkways as well! To apply accent lighting to paths, you can take several different approaches. You could install small light fixtures close to the ground that cast a small amount of soft light directly on the ground. You could also have larger lanterns that give you walkways an old-fashioned feel. Or you can do anything in between. Don’t forget to adequately light any hazards that people could trip over in the middle of the night as well. The main focus here is to create an ambiance that flows naturally with your feature accent lighting.
Once this is done, you can plan out lighting for the more functional areas of your yard. This can include deck or patio lighting. Most of the time, these areas will have more light shone on them because you will need to see to read or operate the barbeque grill as the night grows on. However, there is no reason you have to light this entire area in bland halogen light. Try using some colored bulbs and a few interesting light fixtures that match the lights you have installed in your yard. Just make sure that everything flows together.
Outdoor accent lighting is easy to define, but sometimes can be tough to implement in practice. However, there are several simple steps that you can take to help you plan out great garden lighting. First, make sure that you cover all your areas with light that strikes the same mood or ambiance. Second, remember that less light is more. And finally, make sure that you play with different lights and angle of the light to try to create different effects with shadows and light.
