Start with what you want to see
Where roofline lighting handles the house, landscape lighting takes care of the yard: paths, garden beds, trees and stairs. The goal is light you see the effect of, not fixtures you count. Done badly, it looks like an airport runway down the driveway.
What goes in a typical plan
Path lighting is usually the starting point, because it is the part that does a job every night. Uplighting on the trees worth showing changes the whole front of a property after dark. Beds, steps, walls and the drive round it out, and some of that is safety more than style.
The other outdoor lighting people ask about
Homeowners usually want more than one thing. Patio lighting makes the back of the house usable after dinner. Security lighting covers the dark corners, the side yard, the area behind the garage. Accent lighting picks out the details worth picking out.
Where landscape lighting usually goes wrong
More light is not better. A yard lit evenly at every point looks flat, which is exactly the look people are trying to get away from. Badly aimed fixtures put light in your guests' eyes instead of on the ground. The third is forgetting that plants grow, since the bed in front of a fixture fills in.
Commercial landscape lighting
Businesses use the same tools for different reasons. Outdoor seating lives or dies on the lighting. Parking and walkways come down to safety. A neighborhood entrance is about the first impression of the whole community, which is why entrances get lit carefully.
Combining the two
Roofline lighting handles the building. The yard is a separate job. Most properties want both. The house has an outline; the ground has layers. One without the other looks unfinished.Doing them in one plan beats adding one to the other later. If the budget only covers one this year, ask which half does more for your property, and the answer is not always the house.Landscape lighting needs a look
https://pastelink.net/jhnaph8c now and then. Mowers, mulch and seasons nudge fixtures out of position. An annual adjustment keeps the plan looking like the plan.
How to start
A landscape lighting installation is worth planning on site, preferably with somebody who has seen it after dark. EverCrest Lighting installs landscape lighting along with patio, accent, security and permanent roofline lighting for residential and commercial properties. Working out of Greenville, South Carolina, they cover Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina. Consultations are free, and the design gets built around your yard. Reach them at (864) 252-1732 or
[email protected].