When it comes to installing outdoor landscape lighting, you have several options for companies, but it boils down to really just two options.  You can go with a no-name budget company or a quality company such as Hampton Bay, which is widely recognized as one of the best outdoor lighting companies.  While you may save some money initially if you are buying budget lighting, it generally will not look as good outside your home and you will end up replacing the lights much soon than you would have otherwise.  If you’re not convinced yet that Hampton Bay outdoor lighting is for you, here are a few reasons that you should look further into it.

Why Choose Hampton Bay?

When you choose Hampton Bay lights for your landscape, you’re getting a quality package at an affordable price.  The designs that are offered are stylish and you have a wide array of options that can fit any home and that are in the budgets of almost every homeowner.  You won’t have to worry about the lights not turning on or off, batteries aging in your outdoor solar lighting, or the lights generally breaking down nearly as much because they are made with quality in mind.

Different Options for Hampton Bay Outdoor Lighting Fixtures

Hampton Bay outdoor lights come in many different styles, forms, and functions, so you’ll be sure to find one that fits both your lighting needs and the style of your home.  You can find outdoor flood lights for security lighting or just simple up lights that can add to your deck or garden light.  There are also wall and post mounted lights as well as hanging lights to choose from.

Hampton Bay lights come in a variety of popular styles and finishes and you can find them in everything from pewter to copper to nickel and brass.  They styles of the lights are distinctive and sure to set your home apart from the others in the neighborhood.

Buying Hampton Bay Lights

So, you’re ready to take the plunge and find some outdoor lights?  Well, first thing first, you need to develop a rough plan of where you want to place your lights.  Try to sketch out your house the best you can and identify the places on it where you would like to place lighting.  Make sure to get all your paths and entryways lit up for security and safety!

After you’ve done this look online or make a trek to a local store that stocks Hampton Bay products and look at the different fixtures that are available.  Make sure to find ones that fit your home, budget, and your personal preferences.  Also compare the choices you have between solar lights and low voltage lights.  Low voltage lights will be harder to install initially, but they’re more reliable and longer lasting than solar lights.

Once you’ve decided on a set of lights, all that’s left to do is buy them!  You can find Hampton Bay lights at any Home Depot store near you, or at several specialty vendors online.

Everyone wants to make the outside of their home look the best it can and the garden and patio area is an important part. If you want a great looking landscape, you need to have some inspiration to come up with ideas that will make your home look beautiful. Outdoor landscape lighting is among the most interesting patio ideas you can use to enhance the look of both the garden and the patio.

It is important to keep security a high priority when you are designing and installing outdoor garden lighting. You will need to make sure all wires are hidden and insulated so that they cannot get in the way of children or pets. Double checking all your work is a smart thing to do with all things electrical.

Of course, it’s essential to understand when and how one can best use panorama lighting to accent your property. Dusk to nightfall are the best hours where the landscape lighting will be the most impressive. You will also want to carefully consider the types of plants and bushes you have and where they are placed around the yard. The use of shadows is something you can play around with to make the lighting more impressive.

Yellow tinted lighting lends a way of traditional grandeur to the home it displays and it really works nicely with stone patio ideas like flagstone or brick. Other choices are an orange lighting that ads a cozy and inviting atmosphere and plain white lighting that looks more traditional.

It can be quite troublesome to select the proper garden lights for your backyard project because there are a lot of decisions to be made. When it comes down to it, an important thing in regards to the selections that you make is that they fit your personal tastes. Needless to say the entire purpose of doing all that is so you can increase your personal enjoyment.

Exterior LED lights are a great way either start a new outdoor landscape lighting system or add to your existing system.  If you install them correctly, in no time you can have an incredibly eco-friendly, low-maintenance system that will cost barely anything in monthly upkeep.  As LED technology picks up pace, there are more and more different fixtures that come in a wide array of different colors, sizes, and effects.  If you’re having some trouble choosing from the myriad of options, or simply need some creative ideas, here area few lighting ideas that you can try to apply in your own backyard.

Add Ambiance with Color Changing Lights

If they’re used correctly, placing one or two color-changing LED lights in the middle of your property can create a great effect.  Try to aim the lights at a particular plant, statue, or wall to get the whole effect.  Be careful when you’re applying this however.  One color changing light is impressive, two can look good if done right, but any more than that will make your backyard look more like you’re getting ready for Christmas than anything else.

Wash Out Walls

LED landscape lighting makes use of some of the most powerful bulbs on the market today.  If you have an unused wall or fence you can make use of it by bathing it in bright LED light to wash it out.  There are several things that you could achieve with this effect.  Aiming the lights just right could bring out the texture in a stucco wall, while placing other objects in front of the lights can cause them to cast long, ominous shadows on your wall.  You could even just wash out the wall in color to create a more interesting look.  If you use two different LEDs of complementary colors or a color changing LED, the effect can look particularly interesting.

Make Use of Recessed Lighting

LEDs make recessed lighting an incredibly good option if you have the time, tools, and know-how to install it.  Recessed LED garden lighting can be installed in steps, decks, under railings, or even along paths.  It takes more time to install than normal lighting because each fixture needs its own hole, and the wire delivering power to the lights more often needs buried as well, but it adds a classy look to your property that few others take the time to install.

Light Water Features

Some of the best targets for nighttime lighting with conventional lights are water features, and this is the same for exterior LED lights.  Whether you have a pool, fountain, pond, or some other kind of water in your backyard, odds are that it will benefit from being lit in some way.  LED light fixtures come in many different styles adapted for use in watery environments, ranging from floating “lillipad” lights to underwater lights.

Make 1 Watt Lights Look Like Pearls

One really unique way to use LED lighting is to buy a large amount of one watt LED lights that can be placed at various places around your garden.  These individual bulbs will draw the eye of anyone walking around your yard.  The blackness around them and the small amount of strong, bright light the put our will make it seem like your backyard is covered in pearls or jewels.

Small LED Light in a Tree

LED-Lit Sculptures

Another unique lighting effect that you can create with your exterior LED lights is to install an LED-lit sculpture.  During the day these objects look just like normal sculptures in your garden.  But at night they come alive, as they sparkle with light coming from several LED light diodes installed in the sculpture itself.  You can also take advantage of this by adding 1 watt LEDs to any existing sculptures that you may have.

Trees, Paths, and Plants

Finally, while LED lighting is new and exciting, don’t forget that you can also use it in all the ways that you’ve always used traditional incandescent lighting.  You can use the same effects that you have been using for years, but by replacing your incandescent light fixtures, you save money on replacing bulbs every few months and on electricity because LEDs use exponentially less power.  Just make sure to find LEDs with the same color as the incandescent fixtures you are replacing, otherwise the effects that you create will be slightly different.

There are many different ways that you can use LED lights to bring out the color, shape, and texture of your landscape late at night, and they are an essential part of almost any systems of garden lights.  They are a little bit more expensive than most incandescent fixtures, but over the long run they do save you money, especially when you shop online to find the best deals.

If you decide to have your light professionally installed, the biggest single decision that you will make while installing your garden lights is choosing a landscape lighting company. There are several situations when you absolutely will need to hire them, but if you would like your lights to look the absolute best, you can enlist the help of experts as well. Use care when choosing the company and look for references and pictures of their previous work to see what they have accomplished. As long as you do the proper snooping around and make sure that you find a company that does quality work, you should be happy with the lighting company that you choose.

Reasons to Hire a Landscape Lighting Company

There are several areas of work where you will absolutely need to hire a company that specializes in landscape lighting because the work will be too dangerous for you to complete yourself. This includes situations where you plan on installing garden lighting that works off of the high voltage wires that run through your house or if you need to run ground wires to a low voltage transformer. You should never, ever work with high voltage lines yourself because they need to be buried deep underground and present a significant shocking hazard.

You can also hire a landscape lighting contractor if you simply want to make the job of installing the lights easier on yourself or want to make sure the lights are professionally done. Most landscape lighting companies will have experienced staff with years of experience that can be put to work designing your lights as well as access to a lot more fixtures and design options than you would have had yourself. All this adds up to more professional looking lights that make your garden look amazing.

Choosing Landscape Lighting Companies

When you’re choosing a company to design your outdoor garden lights, always keep in mind that cheaper is no necessarily better. While some companies may come in with very low offers, the company that gets the job done right the first time with quality construction methods and materials will be the ones that will give you the most value for your money. There are several ways that you can make sure that the contractors you hire will be the best value

First, check and see if they are licensed, insured, and bonded. Many states actually require this of landscaping companies as well. Insurance is a very big deal if you’re planning on having high voltage wires run in your yard. The landscapers could possibly hit another wire or a water or gas pipe, resulting in lots of damage. If the company isn’t insured, it could fall on you to have to pay for the damages.

Always ask for references and photos of previously completed work as well. This will be the best indicator of what a company is capable of. If you have friends or neighbors who have landscape lighting that you like, go and ask them if they had their lawn professionally lit. Sometimes they may be able to recommend a good company for you.

Finally, you can always also ask the landscapers themselves why they are charging more or less. Most landscaping companies will be smaller operations, meaning they will all get their supplies at the same general rate from most likely the same large suppliers in the area. Ask what sets one company’s work apart from the others and why they can charge more or less.

Choosing the right landscape lighting company is a big decision and it should not be entered into mildly. Make sure that you know everything you can about the company’s past work and what types of designs they are capable of. Once you’re familiar with all the companies making offers, you can make the best decision possible.

Many homeowners will spend thousands of dollars on their home landscaping, and create beautiful yards and gardens that are the envy of the entire neighborhood.  But many of these same homeowners see their creations, their investments disappear as soon as the sun goes down.  They don’t know that the beauty of their home and property can improve at night with the right installation of landscape lighting.

The first question to ask yourself when you are considering outdoor landscape lighting is what is your goal?  Is it to show off a new landscape design?  Is it to improve security?  Is it to throw parties and entertain guests outside?  There are many different options and types of landscape lights, and answering this question will set you on the right path to choosing the right lights.  For example security lights are bright and light up large areas of your property; smaller spotlights, even colored floodlights, can make your yard look great.  And if your goal is to throw great parties, you want festive lights that set the right mood.

The next choice is how you want to power your lights.  Traditional lights need to be wired to the house, either hard-wired into the electrical panel, or through use of an outdoor extension cord.  Solar landscape lighting, on the other hand, requires no wires, trenching, and doesn’t take any power.  This keeps your electric bill down.  One drawback of solar landscape lights is that they need to get a lot of sun during the day, and are not always as bright as wired lights.

So, figure out what you are trying to accomplish, and then get out there and see what products meet that need. The good news is that whatever you are looking for, there is a great solution that will fit all of your needs and give you a great looking property!

Lamps have been used for centuries for providing light. While most people would not feel a room inside their home was complete if it didn’t have a lamp or two, they may be overlooking this option when providing light for their outdoor rooms. Outdoor lamps, just like indoor lamps can add extra lighting just where you need it. Adding lamps to your outdoor patio lighting may be just the extra touch needed to make your outdoor living areas complete.

I don’t recommend placing lamps designed for indoor use outdoors, but instead use one of the many lamps that are specifically designed to be used outdoors. These lamps will be weatherproof, waterproof and generally will be heavy enough to withstand windy days.

Outdoor lamps for use on your patio, porch or deck are available as both table top and floor lamps. Both styles of lamps can be found in an amazing variety of designs, from traditional styles that look much like indoor lamps to whimsical lamps that not only add light but are also a decorative accent.

Patio floor lamps are great for lighting up those dark corners of your outdoor rooms. Do you have a seating area on your patio that never seems to get used much after dark because the existing lighting is not adequate? Adding a floor lamp or two may provide enough extra light to make that area more inviting.

Adding a table lamp to your patio table will make eating meals outdoors more enjoyable. Not only will you be able to see what you are eating you will also be able to better see and converse with the other people around the table. Table lamps are also a good idea for using on accent tables in your seating areas.

If you have never considered using lamps to complement your other outdoor patio lights, you really should. You will enjoy the extra illumination and the decorative touch they provide.

Outdoor step lighting serves one main purpose in your home, to keep you and anyone else who happens to be using your steps safe from trips and falls during the night. But just because the lights serve this mundane purpose doesn’t mean that they have to be equally boring. Depending on what look you want to achieve, step lighting can be unobtrusive or decorative or just entirely functional. There are many different types of deck lighting features and designs out on the market, it is up to you to decide what is best for your home.

When you’re designing your outdoor landscape lighting, step lighting is probably not the biggest highlight that you are worried about, but it still carries an important function nonetheless, so you should still put some thought into installing them. Try to look at your steps and plan out the traffic pattern that will most likely be used. This is especially true on wide staircases. Also keep in mind the general theme that you are using in all of your garden lights and try to keep this theme in your stair lighting as well. Generally, your stair lights should eliminate all of the shadows on the steps and provide a lot of clear light so that people can see while navigating around your steps. Depending on the layout of your property, there are two different ways to achieve this.

The first way to light up your steps is by downlighting. The most effective downlighting is going to be outdoor flood lights centered right above the steps in a fixture hidden in a tree or roof. However, the lights can also be mounted on a pole near the steps, on the railing of the stairs themselves, or even on a nearby wall. No matter how you decide to install your step lights, keep in mind that the higher up the light is mounted the more steps you can light at one time, but the softer the light will become. The goal is to balance these two competing aspects to create the right look and feel.

The second option for installing outdoor stair lighting is by using recessed lights. Recessed lights are fixtures that are installed into the sidewalls of your steps. These are a little bit more work to install, but they are also much less noticeable and create a much more subtle light that is usually only taken note of when you need it. Depending on the light you are using elsewhere in your yard, this might be the prefect touch. Just don’t install the lights on opposite sides of wide staircases because this can create dark areas between the lights on the steps.

Make sure that whatever lighting style you choose for your steps that you don’t place the lights too close together. This could create too much light on your staircase and actually draw lots of attention to them instead of to more interesting areas of your property. And finally, try to choosing lighting fixtures that come with a lamp shield. The lamp shields will help prevent people at the bottom of the steps that look up from being blinded by the lights.

Installing step lighting isn’t a particularly exciting affair, but it is very important. It will help prevent trips and falls and is an integral part of any outdoor lighting plan.

When you’re designing the lighting plans for your property, its easy to fall into the me-too trap. Because of the availability of products at your local hardware store, you end up with the same tiered lights running up your driveway in the same places as your neighbors do. Instead of having your lights set your house apart from your neighbors, it actually makes it blend in. It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of shopping at your local hardware store, try shopping online for some unique lights. You can also try to set a unique theme or mood or try emphasizing unique aspects of your lawn and garden. But whatever you do, don’t fall into the conformity trap.

The first key to finding extraordinary outdoor landscape lighting is to look for it in unique places. If you go down to your local hardware store to find lights, the lights they stock are going to be the same lights that all your neighbors have been using for years. If you want to set yourself apart, you’re gong to have to find different lights, and this means going to different places. Try to find some stores on the web that specialize in selling unique lighting fixtures. Don’t be afraid to use lights made out of different materials like copper. Just make sure you don’t get tacky and install too many frogs, deer, or other animals with light bulbs in them.

Another route you can take to installing standout lighting in your yard is by trying to set a theme or mood that is different from anything you’ve seen. The island theme, complete with tiki torches is a staple on my decks, and for good reason. But if you want to set yourself apart you need to move beyond this and install something else. Possibly an arctic theme with blue or white accent lighting, or accent your deck with red lighting and candle lights to create a more romantic atmosphere. The possibilities are endless and up to you. You can even light your deck and yard up match one of your favorite sports teams. Just choose a theme not many, if anyone, has chosen yet for their lighting and you’ll be on your way.

Finally, to create truly unique and beautiful garden lighting, you should try to accent the unique aspects of your property and showcase them with the lights. Even if you live in a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood, there is a least something that is unique about your home. It could be a fence, which can be lit with lights leading away from where you expect people to be or a large tree, which you can use floodlights to backlight and cast ominous shadows on your lawn. Whatever the case is, find the different strengths, weaknesses, and unique aspects of your property and show them off or conceal them with your lights.

Putting up unique landscape lighting is easier than you may imagine. You don’t need to hire a professional designer or go to exotic lengths to find them. All that is necessary is that you think a little outside the box and adapt any plans you find to fit the uniqueness of your property.

Once you have sketched out your plan for where you want to put your outdoor lights, landscape lighting installation is actually much easier than your think. If you have chosen to go with solar lights, installation will be a snap, especially if you don’t have much shade in your yard. But even if you’ve decided to go with low voltage garden lights, installation will not be nearly as much of a problem as you may think. Most home improvements stores and even some websites sell kits that can get you started.

Installing Solar Garden Lights

Installing solar lights is relatively simple, but care must be taken when you are trying to decide where to stick them. Make sure that your solar lights are going to be getting direct sunlight for several hours a day. Before you install them you might want to check out where the shadows fall in your yard at certain times of the day, especially if you have a lot of trees on your property.

Once you’ve made sure that your lights are going to be getting the right amount of sunlight, installation of the solar garden lights is a snap. Simply stake the light into the ground, sometimes this might require a shovel for larger fixtures, and forget about it. The light will turn itself on and off every night with a sensor and automatically charge itself during the day.

Low Voltage Landscape Lighting Installation

Installing low voltage system for your outdoor landscape lighting is quite a bit more difficult than installing solar lighting, but if you don’t have an intricate system and already have a grounded plug somewhere sheltered, preferably a shed, you shouldn’t need to call an electrician. In fact most home improvement sites and even brick and mortar stores should be able to sell you cheap kits that will get you all the basic materials you need to light up your yard.

The first thing that you are going to need to get for your system is a landscape lighting transformer. These cost about two hundred dollars and step the electrical current the wires down from the standard 120 volt household current to a much more management and generally shockproof 12 volts. Once you have your transformer, you are going to need to install it somewhere with access to your yard and preferably a central location. For most people this will be a shed.

Make sure you pay attention to what kind of wires you buy for connecting your garden light to the system. Low quality electrical wires can actually leak quite a bit of electricity out of the wire before it even reaches the lights. Normally, this is barely noticeable, but the voltage in these wires is so low you can only run about 15 feet of cable on the lowest setting. Any leakage from the system will be immediately noticeable. Don’t fear if you plan on running more than 15 feet of wire though, you can still up the voltage running through the wires to 22 volts and be safe from shocks. With 22 volts you can run well over 100 feet of wire, which should be enough for most home systems.

After you have the transformer in place, all that left to do is place your light fixtures and run the wires to them. Try to hide or bury the wires as much as you possibly can. Not only will it make your garden look better, it will remove a major tripping and electrical hazard for your family and pets. This is the most time consuming step, but it also doesn’t require a high degree of skill and you should be able to do it yourself.

When you finally hook up your lights, absolutely do not use any light fixtures intended for indoor use outside. The light fixture and the wires in it are not made to stand up to the daily pressures of sun, rain, and wind as other outdoor lights are. At best they will only work for a limited amount of time, at worst they could become a very serious shock hazard.

Installing a landscape lighting system is much easier than most people think. There is almost no technical knowledge needed, even if you are planning on installing a wired low voltage system. Solar powered lighting is even easier to install. Just make sure to buy a quality transformer and wires and they will pay you dividends for years to come.

Planning out a landscape lighting design is like creating a painting. You could choose to go the paint-by-numbers route and install the same boring garden lights that everyone else in your neighborhood has. Or, you could choose to employ some creative landscape lighting ideas and paint your very own masterpiece that will be uniquely yours. This may sound impossible, but it’s actually quite easy with the help of some research on the web and a few design tips you should be on your way to designing your own Sistine Chapel in no time.

1: Use Different Colored Lights to Evoke Different Emotions

One of the easiest ways to get more creative with your landscape lighting is to use different colored bulbs. While most people will stick with the standard white, try using other colors to create a distinct atmosphere. Yellows and reds can create feelings of warmth and passion when used correctly, while you can create a fresh, wintery feel with combinations of blue and white light. Green light meanwhile makes the foliage on tree pop out in the night. This is especially true with pine trees.

Be careful not to overdo this effect as it can leave your yard feeling more like Times Square than a personal garden. However, a few well placed colored light bulbs will greatly add to the atmosphere or any landscape.

2: Don’t Just Light Your Garden

When designing outdoor landscape lighting projects many people focus solely on their gardens, pathways, and on functional lighting for a deck or patio. Make sure you don’t fall into this trap. Landscape lighting should involve your whole landscape, and this includes your house and other architectural features that might be on your property. Make sure that these structures get some feature and ambient lighting as well.

For starters, you could use spot or wall lights to highlight the side of a building. Building facades can also be up lit, and the same is true with archways. Walls and fences around your property also lend themselves to lighting, try focusing a gentle light leading away from your main entertaining area on these features. Just be creative and work with whatever structures are on your property, you can even uplight things such as a small birdbath.

3: Try to Create Dramatic Effects

One of your main goals should be to create several dramatic effects on your landscape using you lights. This is done by playing with varying degrees of light and shadow and different strengths and types of bulbs. This effect is easy to accomplish with trees. For a dramatic effect place a floodlight behind a tree to backlight it. Play with the angle and position of the light until you get it to the exact right spot for your tree. You can also do this in things as mundane as flowerbeds by placing lights in the flower bed at different intervals and heights. This can create an interesting play between shadows and light.

4: Include Water

Water can add another element of creativity to any lighting plan. The surface can form as a reflecting pool that you can cast use as a mirror or setup as a twinkling oasis as it ripples in the night. If you are lucky enough to have the room, a pool works great with lighting systems. If your pool is against the side of a house or building, one interesting effect you can try is to uplight the side of the building that the pool is close to. If you’re standing on the other side of the pool, you then should be able to see a mirror reflection of the wall in the pool. However, for this to work you need to keep your pool spotless so it might be a good idea to hire a pool cleaning service.

Small ponds and fountains are also very versatile when used for lighting purposes. You can place underwater lights in them to show them off at night or shine soft lights across the surface to make the top of the water twinkle when it ripples. Even a small birdbath filled with water will work well as part of a lighting system. The area around the birdbath can be lit up or you can just use it to reflect moon and starlight off of.

If you’re looking to install fountains, one great option is to install solar fountains.  These fountains use solar energy to run so they don’t use any electricity from your home system.  They’re a great pair for your solar garden lighting system and the solar fountains will help make your landscape more eco-friendly.

5: Look Around for Inspiration

If you’re stumped to come up with ideas on your own, perhaps the best thing that you can do is pay a visit to any local botanical gardens you may have in your area. These gardens are professionally designed and should be able to get your gears turning for lighting ideas you can use in your own yard.

Coming up with great landscape lighting ideas is out of your reach. It does require some outside the box thinking to move beyond what you’ve seen in other yards in the past. Think about your own property. What are its greatest strengths you want to show off? Think about this and put some of our tips to work in showcasing your property at night.

There is no doubt that one of the biggest advances in garden lighting in recent years has been the advent of solar garden lights. There are many upsides to solar lights for gardens, they are easy to install, require little upkeep, only incur upfront costs, and are friendlier for the environment. However, there are also many downsides to solar powered lights that can leave you in the dark if you aren’t careful. Make sure you do all your research and plan out your lighting design before you fix yourself on installing a system based entirely around outdoor solar lighting.

The first aspect of solar lighting that you need to be careful of is the fact that solar lights need direct sunlight. Not only do they need direct sunlight, they need direct sunlight for several hours a day. This means that you most likely will not be able to place solar lights around a tree on your property to do uplighting or backlighting. The lights may work in these situations, but they will not shine as brightly or as long as if they were in direct sunlight. If this is fine with you, then you can install these lights here, but make sure you take this into consideration before you sink money into a solar system.

To avoid problems with direct sunlight, look at your yard and where you plan to install lights at different times of the day. Do to the areas you want to install solar lights in get sunlight for a large portion of the day or just an hour or two? Does the sun dip behind the neighbor’s oak tree very early, casting a shadow that could cause your solar garden lights to turn on during the day? If you are unsure about how a solar garden light might do in an area, one solution is to go out and buy one light instead of buying enough to install in your entire yard. Try the light out in different locations for a few days at a time and see how it does. If the light performs up to your standards, you can go and buy the rest of the lights. If not, it may be time for you to look into installing low energy lighting.

Another concern with solar lights is that there is somewhat of a lack of options for lighting fixtures. There is no end to the amount of styles of mushroom lamps, tiered lamps, or lanterns that you can find powered by solar light. This is because these lights all have a sizable surface on the top of them where a solar panel can be conveniently and inconspicuously placed. But outside of these and several other styles of fixtures, solar powered lights are harder to find. You won’t find many underwater lights or recessed uplights powered by the sun. If you attempt to base your entire garden lighting plan around solar power, you may end up with fewer options and less effective lighting than you wanted. A better option would most likely be to base the parts of your system around solar lighting that you could and the other parts on a conventional, low voltage system.

Solar garden light is extremely useful and puts affordable exterior lighting into the hands of most every homeowner. However, it is important that you know the limitations of solar powered light fixtures if you are going to start designing your own landscape lighting scheme.

One of the necessary finishing touches to any well maintained property is the use of outdoor landscape lighting fixtures. Landscape lighting increases the visual appeal of your house and the functionality of much of your land and it brings your property value along for the ride as well. Designing lights that will take both you and your neighbor’s breath away on a nightly basis is not hard. You just need the proper planning and installation to get it done right.

Decide On Your Outdoor Landscape Lighting Theme and Fixtures

When it’s viewed at night without any lights, your landscape is almost like a blank canvas that you can draw anything on. The first thing you must figure out is what type of mood you would like to set with your outdoor landscape lighting. To do this, take a walk around your property and night and try to figure out what you could be doing after dark and what you would like you and other people around to feel like while they’re doing it. Maybe you want your deck to have an island theme for when you have cookouts or maybe you want to give some of the trees a spooky, almost surreal feel with long shadows. Let your imagination run wild with the possibilities.

While you’re doing this avoid the mistake many homeowners make and try to only choose one theme to light your house in. One theme will give everything a consistent feel that can be built on, but if you try to mash together too many themes in a tiny area, you will end up with no theme at all and just a lot of tacky lights. Pick something and stay with it. If you want to go to a different style, you can always change lights out later.

After you’ve decided what general theme you want to employ, its time to decide on the different outdoor landscape lights and lighting methods you would like to employ. Start first with how you would like to light the paths on your property; these can range from driveways to actual walking paths through your garden. These are the easiest lights to decide on and so should give you a great starting point. After you’ve decided on your path lighting style, try to decide how you would like the entrances to your house lit. After the entrances, move to deciding the lighting style for the large objects in your landscape, such as large trees, shrubs, pools, and facades. Finally, figure out the accent lighting for smaller areas and objects on your property. Start with the easiest and largest things to light and work your way down.

While you are doing this, it might help to either sketch out a picture of your landscape and draw in the lights, or if you’re really talented, take a picture use a computer program such as Photoshop to do much the same thing. This will help you get a better overall picture of how your landscape will end up looking once the lights are installed.

Things to Keep In Mind While Designing the Lights

While you’re trying to sketch out the lights you would like to use on your property, try to have a specific task in for each bulb you are trying to place. Are you place lights here for security or are they just to make sure people aren’t tripping over the stairs? Different tasks will need different bulbs and different features to accomplish what you hope them to.

If you are aiming for accent lighting your garden while placing your outdoor landscape lights, try to create some dramatic touches if possible. Do this by playing with the different shadows that object throw off. Try moving lights around and placing them at different heights to give you different looks.

Finally, one other very important thing to keep in mind when planning your landscape lighting scheme is how far away your lights will ultimately be from the transformer if you are planning on using low voltage landscape lighting. You transformer will turn the normal 120 volt current electricity into 12 to 22 volt power that will not shock people out in your lawn. However, the downside to this that the further away from the transformer you run power cords, the dimmer your lights will be. This needs to be taken into consideration as well.

By using these design tips and other creative landscape lighting ideas, you will be well on your way to creating the outdoor landscape lighting that will be the envy of the entire neighborhood. Just make sure to do your research and start planning today!

There are many different potential ways to light up your garden and property at night. Garden light can be the paints that you use to color the dark canvas at night to any way of your choosing. However, if you’re not particurally artistic this can be an incredibly intimidating prospect. Luckily, there are several basic steps you can use to draw out an effective plan and then some general rules to follow so that your lighting plan turns out to be the tasteful and impressive style you want that increases your property value and adds to the curb appeal of your home.

Initial Garden Light Design Steps

As with almost everything in life, if you are trying to install the perfect lights for your garden, lots of planning is essential. Try to start by making a sketch of your property. Emphasize the largest structures and try to imagine what adding different lights and lighting styles would do to them. Alternatively, if you’re more artistically impaired but computer literate, take a digital photo of your property and open it in Photoshop. In Photoshop you can apply a filter to the image to make it into a sketch and print it out, saving you time and lots of drawings of stick figures. If you’re really good at Photoshop you can also add different filters and effects to show what your garden would look like when its darker and then add light effects at different angles to simulate the effects of light.

When you’re first trying to decide where to put lights, start with the pathways leading to your house and through your garden. Decide which style you would like to have these lit in. From this, figure out how you would like to have the initial entrance to your house lit up. Then, decide on the ways you would like to light the larger structures in your yard. From this you should be able to figure out the smaller accent lights you would like to use for smaller structures and plants.

Now that you know the general steps in drawing up a garden light plan, you can incorporate several basic rules of design to make sure that your lighting plan is the envy of the neighborhood.

Try to Use the Minimum Amount of Light You Can

When you’re designing your garden lighting plans, the temptation may be to bathe everything in a ton of light. This is the number one design mistake most budding gardeners make. Instead, opt for a less is more approach and try to simulate the light level you might experience on a cloudless night under a full moon. Avoid doing things such as using outdoor floodlights to light an entire area of your garden. Use the weaker light to accent your garden and particular plants or structures, such as an old tree or your favorite flowerbed to really draw attention to them and bring them out at night. Choose the bulb you will use for each purpose that its supposed to serve. A bulb for backlighting a tree for instance, will be much stronger than the mushroom bulbs you might place along paths.

Try to Include Water

If you can, try to include water into your garden as part of your lighting plan. This can be with the use of a small pond or even something as simple as a birdbath. You can play with the reflections of the lights you install off the water or even just use it as a place where moonlight and starlight can be reflected. Whatever way you decide to use it, water is definitely a great element to add to any garden light design.

Hide Your Light Fixtures

If at all possible, you should be able to see the light given off from your light fixtures, but not see the fixtures themselves. There are some exceptions to this rule. Sometimes you may want to show the light fixtures, such as if you’re using lanterns to create an old-fashioned feel and other times you simply may not be able to hide the lights. One thing you do not want to do is overuse decorative lights in your garden or lawn. Save the decorative lights for Christmas, when you can place loads of giant lit-up Santas on your lawn, but don’t place a plastic frog or gnome with a light inside every fifteen feet.

Use Solar Lights To Eliminate Hassle

If you want to cut most of the hassle out of lighting your property, consider using solar garden lights. These lights require no wiring and you literally stick them in the ground and forget about them. No need to worry around installing the right transformers and keeping the wires out of sight.

For all the hassle that they save, the major downsides you need to take into consideration. First, because these lights need to have a solar panel on them, the styles that you can use are somewhat limited. Second, the lights need to be placed in an area with access to direct sunlight, so on cloudy days or in shadier areas they might not be as bright or burn for as long. Because of these limitations, solar garden lights usually work best when used as small pathway or deck lights. They generally come in the styles most people want to light their paths with and areas such as the driveway are relatively open to sunlight in most homes.

It is incredibly easy to make a garden light design that you can be proud of. It doesn’t take a professional or even someone who is artistically gifted. If you follow some basic tips and use your imagination, there’s no end to the different lighting styles that you can come up with for your garden.

Advancements in technology have made solar garden lights more popular and widely available than ever. But its not just all hype, there’s many good reasons that you should use solar lights for your next big garden project, and they’re not all just about saving the earth.

1 – Solar Garden Lights are Environmentally Friendly

The first, and for some the biggest, reason for buying solar powered lights is that they’re environmentally friendly. If you opt for solar powered lights, each one will come with an individual solar panel on the top that charges a battery up during the day so that it stays bright all night. Because the light is entirely driven by solar power, there’s no need to hook them into the electrical grid and power them with dirtier forms of power that can cause pollution and smog.

On top of this, solar powered garden lights also make use of LED light bulbs which last for years and burn much less energy than an equivalent incandescent bulb. This means that you will most likely never have to change the light bulb in the solar powered lights you buy.

2 – Solar Garden Lighting is Easy to Install

Because they don’t require any wires to be run, solar powered lights are much easier to install. You won’t need to dig any ditches, hire and electrician or install any transformers for the lights to work. All that is required on your part is to find a spot that you want lit at night that receives some direct sunlight during the day and stick the light in the ground or on the wall right were you want it. It’s that easy!

3 – They’re Cheaper than Other Landscape Lighting Options

Advancements in technology have made solar panels less and less expensive in recent years. They have also made high-tech batteries and LED lights more affordable and productive. This puts even high quality solar garden lights within the reach of most consumers. Additionally, since there’s no wires to run you’ll also save time and money because you won’t have to install transformers, hire an electrician, or dig any ditches to run the wires for the lights.

4 – Solar Lights Require Very Little Upkeep

There incredibly little upkeep involved with solar lights. LED lights are incredibly long lasting so you won’t have to worry about changing any light bulbs for a long time. You also don’t even have to worry about flicking the lights on and off. Every light comes with a daylight sensor on the top that will tell the light if it is dark out or not. So every night when the sun goes down the light will flick itself on and when the sun rises again it will flick itself off. Never again will you have to worry about wasting electricity if you forget to turn off your lights at night.

5 – Garden Lights Improve the Attractiveness of Your Property

If you’ve spent countless hours tending your garden, why should you let something as silly as the night ruin it? By installing garden lights you can unlock a new dimension of your garden that you couldn’t see during the day by using shadows or using light in interesting and unique ways. With the ease of installation and variety of choices that you have today with solar lights, there’s almost no reason not to.

6 – Use Your Property All Hours of the Day and Night

By installing patio, garden, and deck lights you can entertain guests or just enjoy the outside parts of your property long after the sun goes down. Whether this involves moonlit walks in your garden, flipping burgers on your deck with some friends, or just lounging back with a book, chances are you’ll have a lot more fun.

These are six of the best, but there are countess other reasons that you should install solar garden lights. With how cheap and easy they are to install, you will almost certainly not regret installing them!

Well-designed outdoor landscape lighting can create many different looks that can make your house stand out from the rest of the neighborhood. You might be after just the aesthetic enhancements or you might need some added safety. The right landscape lighting can provide either or both in a well-balanced manner.

When it comes to outdoor landscape lighting, you have two main choices when it comes to light fixtures: traditional wired landscape lights, or solar landscape lights.  You are free to pick whichever lights you prefer, but you need to know what you are getting when you purchase each one.  Wired lights give you a very consistent light night after night.  They will keep on shining the same, no matter what.  The main drawback is that you have to install the wires for these lights, which can mean a lot of trenching through your grass, under your patio and garden paths, and around trees.

Solar landscape lighting is powered by the sun; therefore you don’t need to run any wires to the solar lights.  This makes them very easy to place, and gets rid of all the work that it takes to install wires.  The other benefit of solar lights is that because rays from the sun power them, they are free to operate.  They will not increase your electric bill by one penny.  The one drawback to using solar lights is that the light that they put off at night depends on the amount of sun they get during the day.  If you have several cloudy days in a row, the battery may not recharge enough to give the light full power throughout the night.  You have to be very careful when you choose where to put solar lights to make sure they get enough sun year-round.

So, no matter whether you choose traditional landscape lighting or solar landscape lights, you can design a lighting scheme for your yard that meets all of your needs.