Outdoor lighting elevates and transforms a home’s outdoor landscape. The resulting shadows can make your home appear regal and magical, your own castle within an enchanted forest. While it can make your house seem like something out of a storybook, outdoor lighting can take this effect a step further by making your home look multidimensional, rather than flat and two-dimensional like the houses you see in the pages of those same storybooks. Here are four things you can do to make sure your outdoor lighting yields the best possible effect.
1. Utilize Textures
The materials used to build your home can be highlighted to add another visual layer to your home. For example, if your home was built using wood, well lighting and path lighting can be used near walls to bring out the rich ambers and lighter tans and browns of the wood. Diffused light sconces can be used to make texture pop in otherwise flat areas, such as brick columns. When paired with recessed lights, you can create gorgeous lighting patterns that help highlight angles and shapes, creating a warm glow without overpowering the natural beauty of the night.
2. Emphasize Shadows Within Foliage
Whether you want to be subtle with your lighting or bold, lighting up the plants in your garden and around your yard can be a great place to start. For those who prefer more subtle lighting, picking areas where nature is already doing most of the work is an invaluable strategy.
For example, placing lights near a beautiful tree, a radiant flower garden with some ornamental grass, or along winding vines allows you to emphasize the gorgeous parts of your exterior that are already attracting the eyes of onlookers. You can use smaller spotlights to bring out the beauty of these elements by creating shadows and silhouettes. The shadows will allow the color of the plants to really shine through and pop-under the extra lights. For a bolder look, try using spotlights and floodlights to create a blanket of light over a larger area. This will increase visibility, highlight the green in your yard, and create a bolder statement than highlighting only one specific area.
3. Use Uplighting
Uplighting helps anchor key elements, such as a specific tree or an ornamental gate. Types of uplighting include sconces, spotlights, and globe lighting. With uplighting, you can invest in shields to direct and control the intensity of the light. Without this nuance, like Goldilocks, you might find one light is too bright, and another is too dim. With uplighting, you’re able to find lighting that is just right. This can help you show off beautiful windows and light up a deck staircase without risking a glare or tripping in the dark.
4. Find Exceptional Lighting Designs at Creative Nightscapes
Even Cinderella needed some help to look her best for the ball. Follow her lead and consult the experts at Creative Nightscapes so we can help you create an enchanting look that will be gorgeous well after midnight. After seeing how magical we can make your home look with our lighting expertise, you might swear we have a fairy godmother or two on staff, too. Call us today so we can help light the way to happily ever after for you and your home.
