Professional Landscape Lighting Installation, What Gets Lit and Why|Thinking About Landscape Lighting: Start With the Yard You Have

Landscape lighting is a design problem before it is a shopping problem

Where roofline lighting works on the building, landscape lighting handles everything below it: paths, garden beds, trees and stairs. Done well, it looks like the yard is lit and not like a row of lamps. Done badly, you get a line of glowing dots along the path and not much else.

What a yard normally needs

Most plans start with the path to the door, because that is the part you use whether or not anybody is looking. A well placed uplight gives the yard depth after sunset. Beds, stairs, retaining walls and the driveway fill in the rest, and the step lighting is safety more than looks.

Landscape, patio and security lighting are related jobs

The request almost never stays in one lane. Out back, patio lighting is the difference between a patio you use and one you look at. Security lighting handles the parts of the property nobody can see from the street. Accent lighting handles the detail.

Common mistakes

More light is not better. Even light across the whole yard removes the shadow that gives a yard shape. The second mistake is aiming fixtures where people walk, so the path lights blind you instead of showing the path. The third is forgetting that plants grow, since the bed in front of a fixture fills in.

Commercial grounds lighting

On commercial property the goals shift. A restaurant patio needs light people want to sit under. A parking area is about people getting to their cars. A neighborhood entrance sets the tone for everything behind it, which is why entry lighting gets attention in planned developments.

Landscape lighting and roofline lighting in one plan

The two do different jobs and look better together. The house has an outline; the ground has layers. Either one alone leaves half the property flat.Doing them at the same time 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.Unlike a roofline system, ground level fixtures shift. Mowers, growing shrubs and time nudge fixtures out of position. Once a year somebody should re aim what permanent outdoor lighting has drifted, which takes very little time and makes an obvious difference.

How to start

The plan comes from walking the property, not chosen off a menu. EverCrest Lighting installs landscape lighting along with patio, accent, security and permanent roofline lighting for homes and businesses. They are based in Greenville, South Carolina and serve Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina. Consultations are free, and the design gets built around your yard. Call (864) 252-1732 or email [email protected].

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