The exterior of your house can be as beautiful as the interior, both day and night—and this is made possible with creative outdoor lighting. Landscape design during the day is eye-catching, but one lit up at night is breathtaking.

In addition, landscape lighting improves security around your home and shines a spotlight on garden features you want to draw attention to. 

Factors to Consider Before You Begin Landscape Design

Don’t dive straight into outdoor lighting until you’ve done some homework.

For instance, what will your landscape lighting project cost? How energy efficient are flood lights? What’s the best way to save energy? What type of extension cords are necessary? How can you eliminate the safety hazard?

Costs

Hardscape lighting may cost vary, depending on what light bulbs you’re going to use, the number of lights, and the location of the lights. Are you going to hire a landscape contractor or DIY?

DIY

It’s possible to install a simple landscape lighting design by yourself, but if you start to use complex light fixtures, then, for safety purposes, you should hire a professional.

Types of Outdoor Lighting

There are several types of landscape lights that light up your garden.

  • Highlighting – Lights placed at the base of the feature
  • Silhouetting – Lights placed behind the feature 
  • Shadowing – Lights placed in front of the feature and aimed toward a wall
  • Washing – Lights placed a few feet away from the feature and angled indirectly on a shrub or wall
  • Uplighting – Lights at the base of the feature, aimed straight with a slight upward angle.

Landscape Lighting Ideas

Here are some of the best landscape lighting ideas to brighten your home’s exterior and highlight the beauty of your home’s architecture.

Pathway

Pathway lighting is the easiest way to add outdoor lighting to your home. You can light the path using uplighting, downlighting, and garden stones.

Use step lights on the stairs that lead to your deck or patio. They can go up the path to your front door for security or light up landscaped paths in your garden.

Lighting options include bollard lights, post lights, and floor lamps that are placed directly on the ground.

Downlighting

Simple lights from the roof or ceiling or mounted on the wall. They can be subtle and hidden, or they can be decorative.

Trees

The tree lighting has a strong visual impact, and fairy lights can be strung in and around trunks and branches.

Lanterns can hang from tree branches, and upward lighting can light trees from the bottom up.

Feature Wall

A feature wall in your backyard is a great way to incorporate lighting that will complement your landscape design at night.

You can use many landscape lighting techniques to illuminate your feature wall. Create a pattern with string lights, or write something with rope lights.

You may also hang lanterns or use uplighting, and the list goes on, so it’s a good idea to walk to ask a landscape design contractor about the best landscape lighting for you.

Garden Lighting

Use garden lighting creatively to draw attention to specific features, like water features and flower beds, to be admired. 

Small lights can be strategically placed to bathe your garden in soft light.

Pool Lighting

You can use a pool light to illuminate the water from within. This installation is definitely a job for professionals. 

Downward lights from masonry around the pool provide the area with a gentle ambiance. 

Wall-mounted lights shine light over the area if the pool is near a retaining wall or feature wall. Lanterns in trees are conveniently placed to shed more light too.

Fence Lighting

Fences or boundary walls are ideal for outdoor lights. You can use any lighting to brighten up the fence. 

Line the top of the fence with string lights or distribute string lights in a random pattern. String fairy lights from the fence to another structure, such as a canopy, over your outdoor seating area.

Wall-mounted lights and lanterns are eye-catching. Uplighting ensures the light beam lights up the wall, which is great for security.

Really Simple Lighting Ideas

  • Mason jars with battery-operated fairy lights or solar lights. They can be lanterns or path lights.
  • Tabletop fire bowls provide a safely contained fire. You can put whatever you want on the rest of the table.
  • Masonry planters can be built with a light source in them. The resulting glow lights up the flowers in the planters and also lights up the path or patio where they’ve been placed.

Factors to Consider

Hardscape lighting is low voltage, and an outdoor lighting system comprises a transformer, bulb, fixture setting, stake, and cable. While the transformer keeps the low-voltage landscape lighting system at 12 volts—while the bulb determines the brightness.

The fixture housing holds the bulb and protects it from the elements. The stake goes into the ground to hold the system in place, and the cable carries the current to the system.

Let West Hills Masonry Create Cozy Lighting on Your Landscape Design

If you live in Orange County right now, landscape design is certainly one of the numerous options you’re thinking about to improve your outdoor area and create a gorgeous paradise right in your backyard.

Because we are passionate about developing gorgeous, useful, original, and functional landscape design concepts that realize your dreams, we are a professional landscape designer Orange County residents trust.

If you want to add lighting to highlight your house, contact us at 714-519-5009 at Western Hills Masonry today!