Let There Be Light: 5 Brilliant Lighting Ideas for Your Yard and Garden

Our gardens, no matter how big or small, are our first touch with nature outside our homes. It’s where we can reap the benefits of the time spent outdoors, not having to go too far away. It’s where we make memories of spending precious moments with our family or friends. How can we make the best out of our time spent outside? Our gardens must be well designed and landscaped to be fully enjoyed, but why go inside after the sun goes down? We can easily extend our outdoor hours by simply providing the proper lighting for our backyard and garden. No matter whether we have a backyard of many acres or a cute small garden, the right amount of exterior lighting can turn our late evenings spent outside into a magical experience.

Having the proper exterior lighting can have so many benefits, not limited only to having dinner outside, enjoying the warm summer breeze. It can contribute to the security of our home, as well as the safety of people coming to our house and it can add to the aesthetics of our house exterior. The exterior of our houses is vital when it comes to making first impressions. It tells visitors a lot about us and our life. It’s not about being expensive or cheap, price doesn’t always matter. The exterior tells our story – why do we live here and how do we feel about it? Are we enjoying gardening and outdoor time spent with our family? Are we friendly neighbours, caring for our neighbourhood?

When designing the exterior, it’s important to ask yourself: what do I want people to think of me when they first look at my house. The same goes for designing the exterior lighting. People can’t see anything if it’s dark, so ask yourself again: what do I want people to think of me when they first look at my house at night?

Here are 5 ideas to make the best out of lighting your outside area.Wall Lighting

1. Wall Lighting

The first and most important type of outdoor lighting is wall lighting. The main reasons we consider lighting our exterior walls are decoration and security. Keeping these two things in mind can help you choose the right wall lights exterior models.

Decorative Wall Lights

Besides a doormat with a welcome sign on it, there aren’t many things to make a visitor more welcome than beautifully chosen wall lights mounted next to our front door. A great wall lights exterior idea is to install two lights on each side of the door to make the doorstep welcoming and appealing or install one light on the top of the door, so you can easily see the lock when coming home late at night. The better if the light has an included motion sensor, it will help you save on bills for electricity. Choose a design that complements the design of the door and other features around it – if your doorstep is more of a traditional look, you can go for vintage or rustic wall lights exterior design; if it’s modern, go for a modern wall bracket.

Another idea is to install lighting all over the exterior wall to enhance its texture and design features. Include as many exterior wall lights as you want. Up and down fixed wall lights in warm yellow or warm white tones are recommended for the best highlight effect. If the walls are plain, you can even make a lighting geometrical pattern to make them look textured. Should all outdoor light fixtures match? No, you can mix and match the designs to best serve your purpose. In the end, it all comes down to your imagination and creativity.

Security Wall Lights

It’s a well-known fact that burglars target houses with darker surroundings. Keep the burglars and intruders away from your property by installing outdoor LED floodlights in bright white. The best options are adjustable external wall lights with included motion sensor.

2. Path Lighting

It’s not the most pleasant experience being responsible for some of your visitors falling and breaking a leg due to dark, unlighted garden pathways. Lighting the paths in your front or backyard is probably the most useful thing in terms of safety. And you can use it for light landscaping your garden as well. Walking on a well-lit decorated path will make you feel like you’re heading to a romantic castle or an enchanted garden. You can make the lighting visible creating a row out of mushroom-like lights or you can hide it in the grass or the bushes along the pathway. As the pathways are usually exposed to the sun, it’s a great idea to use solar lights for lighting them. The easy installation process will save you both time and energy.

3. Deck and Patio Lighting

Being a beautiful extension of our home, a deck or patio is where the most interesting social events take place. Adding light to your deck can transform it into an extra room for summer night enjoyment. And like lighting any other room inside the house, there are some tips to make things easier. A great idea that will serve you both for decoration and safety is to install deck posts lights in colours that match your deck post. If there are stairs that lead to it or walls surrounding it, consider lighting them too. You can also go for downlighting, or adding a special light effect to the trees above your patio. You can go for one colour or use different colours for different trees and plants to add a cosiness and naturally inspired look to your evening gatherings.

4. Spotlighting

If you have some architectural or landscaping features in your garden or yard that you want to highlight, spotlighting is the way to go. It creates a unique outdoor scenic look, emphasizing a beautiful tree, a pool, a garden pond or even a textured external wall. Besides being decorative spotlighting, your pool will make it possible to swim and chill until late in the night. Unlike the floodlights that spread light throughout a larger area, spotlights serve to enhance specific objects to create a special lighting effect. Led lights in warm white colour are often used for this purpose. For best effect, place them half a meter away from the feature, giving it a sideways angle.

5. Decorative Romantic Lighting

You can turn your yard or garden into a cosy, vintage-looking safe place you can enjoy precious moments with family and friends even on a low budget. You don’t have to hire a landscaping specialist or buy the most expensive lights. You can get creative with budget-friendly solutions like lanterns and candlelight and still make your garden look like a warm and attractive place everyone desires to spend time in until the late hours. It’s a 100% worth project you can get yourself busy with and create the outdoor space you need to create lifetime memories.