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Topic: Outdoor Lighting



Date Posted: Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Posted by: Tanya Zanfa (Master Admin)
Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/living/indulge/indulge-in-focus/arti...


Exterior lighting can be creative and functional


Exterior lighting can be creative and functional

BY RITA COOK

 

Like a well-designed interior and gracious furnishings in each room, beautiful exterior lighting can increase a home’s grandeur and extend its curb appeal when the sun goes down.

The design of outdoor illumination these days can be as creative as the imagination allows, says Steve Lamb, owner of Lambs Landscape Lighting in Fort Worth.

“We always look for opportunities to illuminate something different in the landscape,” Lamb says. “For instance, we recently installed a system on a property that had a large metal alligator art piece in the landscape. This particular piece had holes throughout the metal; we installed LED lights inside the alligator and created an awesome one-of-a-kind light fixture.

“Any time we can illuminate a playhouse, birdhouse, water feature, fountain or art piece, it also creates a great focal point.”

Making sure it all fits together is key, but Patrick Cheatham, owner of Creative Nightscapes in North Richland Hills, says that about 50 percent of the lighting his company installs is for the front of the home, giving the clients beautiful curb appeal with an added benefit of safety and security.

Landscape lighting experts offer these additional tips to achieve beautiful design in home exterior illumination.

Drive-up Appeal

The most important aspect of drive-up lighting is that it makes the home look lived in, and Keith Gibson, a partner at Southern Lights Outdoor Landscape Lighting in North Richland Hills, says his company uses down lighting from trees or eaves to illuminate driveways and parking areas.

Landscape down lighting is easy to achieve using any available structure and existing trees as the lighting base, he says, making it a popular choice in exterior illumination.

Installers often place lights 20 to 30 feet high in the tree to create a soft “moonlight” look throughout a yard, patio or driveway. They usually use 14-watt LED lamps that are comparable to 100-watt mercury vapor lamps, Gibson says, but homeowners also can also use the 6-watt LED fixtures to illuminate the front of homes, ornamental trees, walls and statues.

“We specialize in ‘moon lighting,’” he says. “We install fixtures very high in the trees to give a true moonlight effect with the goal to see [only] the effect — not the source — by placing fixtures in a way that will complement the home and landscape.”

Lights also can be mounted in stonework or on pathways for lighted and accented walkways.

Patio and Pool Lighting

When it comes to patio lighting, the goal is to enhance the view from the inside out, so a skilled designer will go inside the home to see how the system will look from every angle, Lamb says.

“A good landscape is not designed with just a ‘curb view’ perspective,” Lamb says. “It needs to be designed with many perspectives in mind like the curb, drive, inside the home, patio, sitting areas and the pool. A good lighting system always needs to be designed this way.”

When Cheatham creates pool lighting, he considers the surrounding area of the pool from the nearby walkways, to the overall landscape and decking around the pool. Then designers add path lights to accent the walkways, down lights in eaves to accent the decks and up lighting for key landscaping around the pool.

Eco-friendly Lighting Trends

Designers encourage low-voltage LED lighting for more environmentally friendly projects. LED offers soft, yet stunning, lighting with an energy savings of about 75 percent compared to traditional lights, Cheatham says, and even better, LEDs have a lamp life of up to 15 years.

“LED lighting is the way to go,” Cheatham says. “Outdoor lighting manufactures have perfected the soft-yet-warm color most homeowners want. Low voltage does not mean low quality or low output; it means low energy consumption.”

Some homeowners prefer solar lights, but even though they’re eco-friendly, Lamb says they don’t illuminate as well as LEDs.

“Many people buy solar lights, thinking they can accomplish the desired effect, but as of now it’s simply not possible,” he says. “Solar lights just don’t have the output needed.”

Outdoor Living Areas

The biggest trend in outdoor lighting, experts say, is bringing the inside out with lighting that works in outdoor living spaces.

“Since the indoor living spaces are coming outside nowadays...multifaceted, multizoned systems that allow the space to be dynamic in appearance is the way to go for flexibility, as homeowners want to use the outdoor space to create more space overall,” Gibson says.

But an outdoor system doesn’t have to be an “all on” or “all off” process.

“You can create scenes such as ‘entertain/party’ or ‘romantic,’ which can be accomplished by increased output of some fixtures or dimming or eliminating some for a subtle look,” Lamb says.

Remote Control

Controlling outdoor lighting digitally is one of the latest and greatest advancements, Lamb says.

“The most recent advances are in digital controls or systems controlled by remote or a phone app,” he says. “Couple this with lighting designed with functionality, aesthetics and security, and accentuating the natural elements of a landscape has never been easier.”

Portable Outdoor Lighting Options

Candles, hanging lanterns, chandeliers and string lights add ambiance to evenings outside. There are many ways to create simple lighting projects that can be moved around and added to an already established landscape-lighting scheme, the experts say. For example, float tea candles in water-filled birdbaths or hang colorful solar lanterns with rechargeable batteries and LED bulbs around the yard and poolside. You can also help illuminate walkways and paths by placing small candles in glass holders and stringing lights around tree trunks and branches for an added glow.

Chinese lanterns work well for portable lighting in the garden or poolside, too, and candle lanterns add a soft color around any pool or patio.

Any outdoor lighting, Cheatham says, is an investment “that keeps safety-minded folks happy, and folks who love to entertain and spend time outdoors can enjoy the best of both worlds when night falls.”

Rita Cook is an Arlington-based freelance writer.


Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/living/indulge/indulge-in-focus/article17101772.html#storylink=cpy

 

 



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