About to pull the trigger on landscape lighting. Just wanted to hear other people’s thoughts for design ideas. For reference I do not have street lights so there is no light on the house/street at night. For the maple tree out front I was thinking 2 60 degree 3W well lights. I think that would be enough to light it up pretty nice. I think 5W would be too much? For the front and right side of the house I was thinking simple max area lights in the garden beds. I’d put 2 all star Spotlights 38 degrees 3W on either side of the bay window. If someone thinks a narrower spotlight would look better please let me know. I’d carry the area lights around the right side of the house but with all the windows on that side I’m not sure I could do anything else. For the left side I’d do 1 all star narrow 15 degree 3W spotlight on the brick in between the garage and window. I’d do a few max area lights in the garden and a long the walkway leading to the house. I’m not sure if I can do anything else with this area due to the windows. Please let me know your thoughts.
Love your house, Shaun! I diagrammed a few of your photos to suggest a plan that differs from yours somewhat. Feel free to reject or embrace any or all of my ideas. The first thing that struck me about your house is that you have these super deep soffits that would be ideal for puck lights. A great roofer could either surface mount the lights or drill holes to make them lower profile. A roofer will also be able to help you figure out the smartest and safest ways to conceal your wires. Rather than lighting the relatively small section of brick to the right of the garage, you might install a puck light or two (or hardscape lights) above the garage door. You could do the same with a soffit light on each side of the bay window but I like the idea of up lights there (38 degrees should do) instead just to showcase a different lighting effect. I have an oak tree in the center of my yard roughly the same size as that beautiful maple you have. I'm using four Salty Dog well lights evenly spaced around the edge of the tree's drip line and a pair of All Star spots flanking the base of the tree to light up the trunk. I've lit the tree trunk so that the illumination can be viewed from both the house and the street. Because my tree trunk is fairly thick and I also wanted some light to punch up into the branch structure and foliage of the tree, to illuminate the foliage further away from the trunk, I went with 110 degree spots. My well light lamps are all 60 degrees. You might find that smaller beam spreads work just fine for your needs. For your walkway lights, I strongly urge you to first consider the effect you want. Do you want to see distinct pools of light projected on the walkway or do you want the light pools to overlap so that the walkway is fully illuminated (an approach you might consider if there are elderly residents or visitors using the path routinely). Once you've decided, take a look at the different path light models to see which ones best suit your needs. If you want pools of light that are mostly or entirely projected onto the walkway, you should go with fixture models that project a smaller beam. I have three max spreads evenly spaced (and alternating sides) along a 40 foot walkway and they illuminate the exact portions of my walkway I originally had in mind. On the side of my house where the path is narrower, (and where I've been careful to avoid light trespassing into my next door neighbors yard), I went with the Conehead mini path light. Just something to keep in mind when you're deciding to illuminate different areas of your yard (whether it's a walkway or a garden area). A few last thoughts...You should go with a level of illumination that works best for you. I live in an urban area that's surrounded by parkland. I'm in one of the few areas of my city where the night sky is quite visible. Ambient light is very low and all of my fixtures are fitted with 2W lamps. I feel like that that range of lumens in the 2W lamps illuminates my house and landscape impressively without being harsh or distracting. You might prefer the lumens range of 3W lamps in your fixtures. If I had lots of ambient light from street lights or neighboring lights, I would be inclined to go a little brighter. IMO, though, 5W lamps (at least on the architecture of my home) would be major overkill. It looks like you've got some amazing tall trees on your property. If you have it in your budget, you might consider lighting one or more of those as well. I think that'd really make your property stand out. Having just finished installing my lighting over several weekends during the late winter, I can tell you that you'll likely be tweaking your installation ( light placement, light color, beam spread, etc) for some time after you first switch on your lights. After I got all my lights installed, I decided to fit many of my fixtures with frosted lenses and hexagon filters (to help address glare from fixtures that are closer to the entryway to my home). I don't say that to discourage you but rather to let you know that there's absolutely nothing wrong if you don't have everything up and running perfectly in one day. HTH
