In many ways, your home and your outdoor living spaces are very similar. They’re both places where you and your family like to spend time. Much like the home, your outdoor spaces can feel uncomfortable, unwelcoming, scary, or even dangerous without a good lighting strategy. To avoid making your landscape a place where none dare to tread, here are four instances where your landscaping needs outdoor lighting in Yorktown, NY.
Related: OUTDOOR LIGHTING IDEAS FOR CELEBRATIONS AND GATHERINGS IN BRIARCLIFF MANOR AND CROTON, NY
The Driveway and Walkways: Safety and Welcome
When any car comes up your driveway, a certain type of light can actually make the drive hazardous: the flood light. Many American driveways have a floodlight attached to the garage. Aimed incorrectly, the flood light can often be a source of distraction for a driver and it does a poor job of illuminating the driveway - sometimes, it can even be so bright as to blind the driver. To create a safer and more welcoming ambience, landscape lighting should be focused near the ground. For example, use low-lying pathway lights where the driveway ends and around the home’s entry to light the way without an annoying glare and harsh shadows. You can even house walkway light fixtures in masonry features such as retaining walls or inside a carefully-trimmed hedge, among other options.
Walkways need to be well-illuminated for safety reasons. The same style of focused light, utilizing low-lying pathway lights, will greatly help to improve the experience. Again, avoid overhead lights since they create shadows that could obscure dangers such as uneven ground. Low-lying walkway lights are the best option for walkways. They can actually create a very romantic and enticing experience depending on the warmth of the light bulbs used (warm light is softer and more relaxing, while bright white light is more energizing).
Entertaining and Living Spaces: a Comforting Ambience
Overhead lighting in outdoor living spaces should be used sparingly, mostly as task lighting in the outdoor kitchen. Once again, the small but mighty walkway light can be used to create a soft ambience while safely illuminating walking surfaces.
You can also embed long-lasting LED light fixtures into masonry elements such as a retaining wall, seat wall, or the pillars of a pergola. This is a wonderful clean look that makes your space feel more sophisticated, and highlights the textures of your masonry features.
Taking fire features into account when designing an outdoor lighting scheme can be quite complicated. These wonderful landscape additions already produce a substantial amount of light, so the focus should be on what the space is like when the fire is extinguished. For example, you could add subtle lighting around the bottom of the fire feature. Use smaller LED fixtures that can fit within the masonry structure of the fire feature for a subtle look.
Take advantage of the refractive properties of water to add dynamic illumination to your outdoor space. Use a combination of submersible lighting as well as lighting that spotlights the water feature itself.
The Landscape: Dimension and Security
To avoid an overly stark contrast between well-lit outdoor living spaces and the rest of the landscape, place a few fixtures “randomly” within the landscape. This will enhance security if you illuminate the darkest areas (even a little goes a long way). It also gives the landscape a more dimensional look after dark. Less is more with this approach, to maintain the charm of the night.