Your outdoor deck is beginning to bore you. You’re thinking it’s probably time for a make-over, and you’d really love to jazz the space up with some fabulous outdoor deck lighting designs before your next get-together. You’ve even spent the time draw up a rough plan of your deck, and sketched in some ideas of where you might put some lighting, but you’re still a bit fuzzy on what you should use. So here are 5 deck lighting ideas you could choose to help get you started in the right direction:
1) Your first choice is to install some surface-mounted 12-volt outdoor deck lights. They are small, and cast soft pools of light onto your deck floor from discrete fixtures. They mount right onto most surfaces. These fixtures usually need a hole drilled behind them to run the wiring out of sight behind a railing or post, otherwise you’ll need to get creative to hide unsightly cables.
2) You might also choose a 12-volt recessed outdoor deck lighting fixture. These diffuse the light a bit more, and spread it around for soft general lighting. To mount one, you’ll have to create a hollow area inside something like the deck wall or a planter. Be aware that you should not mount them in an exterior wall of your house.
3) How about a 12-volt surface-mounted bullet garden light? They’re a bit more powerful, often using 35-watt bulbs, and the fixture has 360 degrees of adjustment-rotation for easy targeting.
4) 12-volt staked bullet lights are a great choice for lighting up ground-level features. These are often used for silhouetting plants or small trees or other features of your deck/house. They are mounted on a swivel for help with adjusting and can use 35- to 50-watt bulbs.
5) As a final feature you can choose some great pathway lights that stake into the ground. These are used to illuminate paths and plants and are a bit classier than the bullet-style fixtures. They’ll generally use 9- to 18-watt bulbs.
There are various other fixtures used to design great outdoor deck lighting for your deck or patio, these are but a few. Realize that most lighting for this purpose is not intended to give you blazingly bright flood light across your outdoor space. Soft targeted, or diffused, lighting will be much more appealing, and will highlight only what is necessary for better enjoyment of your deck. Remember that you’d be best off taking your deck-plan to a store specializing in lighting so that you can personally examine and compare all your choices.
Now, you’ve come this far with your dreams of a fantastic outdoor space. You really must check out these other exciting ideas to compliment your outdoor deck lighting.
