Hello! I'm trying to come up with a landscape lighting design for our house which has a uniquely terraced front yard. We are hoping to utilize RGBW lights to give us flexibility to decorate around the holidays. I'm having trouble envisioning how to go about lighting a yard like this to show off the depth/complexity without over-doing it. We have solar path lights along the entrance path from the door off to the right, but these are easy to envision. I'm more stuck on how to light the rest of the yard and/or house with some combination of uplights, downlights, flood lights, or others. Any advice would be very appreciated! Couple of notes: 1) The photos are from prior to purchasing the home, and were taken in the dead of winter (so the foliage is all gone from the trees.) 2) The gravel path through the middle of the yard doesn't access anything except the flower beds/terrace levels, and doesn't need to be lit. 3) The flag pole in the middle-left of the yard is being removed-- no need to light this. 4) Picture 3 is a more recent photo of the yard. Picture 4 is my first stab at designing a layout. Thanks again for any help!
Fellow lighting enthusiast here. First, thanks for posting multiple pics and from different perspectives. Super helpful. You’ve got a nice big canvas to work with and so you have almost endless options. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for lighting your yard, I think it might be helpful to look at similar properties online (real estate websites are great) and also walk around your neighborhood to see what lighting plans others have created. This is a good way to decide what appeals to you and what approaches to avoid. I diagrammed one of your photos to suggest one possible plan for your house. For the landscaping itself, I want to recommend some general ideas to consider. Depending on how much light you want to introduce to your landscaping overall, there are a lot of different ways you can highlight the contours of each level. You could start by highlighting the rock walls at each level. From there you could choose different shrubs or groups of shrubs to light, filling in each section with light in pools of varying sizes. HTH to get you started.
Btw, because you’ll have fixtures mounted on different levels, you’ll want to be mindful of the specific models and types you choose. It’s usually a good idea to keep your light sources hidden. The great thing about a terraced garden like yours is that there’s lots of places you can easily conceal fixtures. In your case, I would take advantage of smaller size fixtures when possible. In particular, I’d focus on fixtures like hardscape, deck, and step lights. You’ll notice that certain fixture types (puck lights, for example) appear under multiple categories on the website. The colored lights are a great idea because they’re super versatile. Not only can you choose the different colors, you can create any white color temperature from very warm to very cool. You can also dim the lights to whatever level you choose. But the best feature (IMHO) is the ability to create multiple lighting zones. One minor note of caution is that there’s a few integrated fixture models where the light color temperature is fixed (the 10W flood, for ex.) and there may be a few other fixture models where there currently isn’t a color option available. If you see any fixture models where it’s not clear or you have other questions about their functionality, I highly recommend that you speak with VOLT customer service prior to making your purchase. HTH.
Thank you so much for the replies, Mesodude2! This is very helpful. I'm planning to go with G5 RGBW Infinity spot light fixtures (https://www.voltlighting.com/rgbcw-g5-infiniti-integrated-led-brass-spotlight) at all the "A" locations. I'm curious if you have recommendations for what style/type of light to use at locations B, C, and D. B seems like it may not need as powerful of a light to just illuminate the rhododendrons, but it's hard to estimate lumen needs/spread/etc. Would something like a G2 RGBW Buddy Pro puck be enough at the B locations? (https://www.voltlighting.com/g2-rgbcw-buddypro-brass-led-puck-light) - Not really sure where to start with C location. - D seems like maybe another candidate for the G5 RGBW Infinity spotlights, with 60deg lens. Thank you so much in advance for any advice you have to offer! It's very appreciated.
