Help with lighting plan

Hey guys. I'm looking for some help on how to do the front of my house. I'd like to add lighting to the dormers for sure with gutter mounted lights as well as the front of the house and some under-lighting for the recessed front porch. I'm a licensed low voltage tech so the wiring and all isn't an issue. I just don't know which lights or bulbs to use or the best placement. As you can see from the pics, my flower bed on 1 side of the house is really narrow and with the evergreens on both sides I think it may be a challenge.

I did some in my back yard with light from 1 of the box stores and it looks really good but I had an idea of how I wanted to do that. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Fantastic house, Patrick. Please check out the diagrams I've done on a couple of your photos. On the front of your house, you might be able to place up lights (spots) where they'll achieve the results you want without moving shrubs. If you find that's not the case and you don't want to move those shrubs, my recommendation for those sections of the house would be soffit lights. Puck lights (either surface mounted or core drilled) should work well, given that you have nice deep soffits on which to install them. I think the fact that you (or your installer) wouldn't have to climb a 25 foot ladder to install them might make that even more of an attractive option. For the four gables, I'd recommend mini spotlights with a beam spread no wider than 38°. On the side of your house, I'd recommend spotlights where indicated. I also wanted to suggest a different layout (which you can take with a grain of salt) for your path lights. If you have a way to route your wires so that you can alternate them along the path something like the way I've indicated, I think that'd give your overall plan a little more flair. Ideally, you want to place your path lights such that they highlight a transition (a curve or corner, or entry way). You might also choose to illuminate something interesting or unique in your garden or yard. Also, if you decide to go with soffit lighting on that side of the house, the lights will also shine on the foundation gardens (and the path as well, to some extent). You may ultimately find that you need fewer path lights in certain areas of your landscape, depending on the approach you take. Btw, I really like the way you're using the back of your fireplace as a backdrop to cast a shadow of that garden sculpture. Hope this helps, and again, feel free to take my recommendations with a grain of salt. There are others who may have a different design sense that you like.

 

Would the puck lights put out enough light? They look tiny compared to the spots. Which model spot would you use for the gables and dormers. Also, what would you do for the recessed porch?

 

See the link below for an idea of how bright these are. There’s two versions. One’s a 15w halogen equivalent and its big brother is a 20w equivalent. They are just as bright as many path, spot, and in ground lights. They’re essentially compact spotlights without a glare guard. I didn’t suggest lighting for the porch because I think lighting those two columns should provide sufficient indirect and reflected light to illuminate the porch. The only other recommendation I might give is to light all three columns. The All Star mini is the fixture I had in mind for the gables but I highly recommend you check out all the different fixtures and specs before making a final decision. https://www.voltlighting.com/projec...of-a-brick-colonial-/p/project-brick-colonial

 

So, one more question. My house sits on top of a pretty high hill. Since the puck lights don't have a glare guard, would the LED's be visible as just a very bright light from the road level?

 

From below your house, the lights will look like bright dots. But remember they're small and they're only putting out the halogen equivalent of 15W-20W. An alternative to puck lights are rotatable hardscape lights. They are also low profile and you can aim them so the light source is less visible but the beam shape is a little different.So ultimately you're going to have to decide whether hiding the light source or hiding the fixture is more important to you. I forgot to mention that a well light would allow you to hide the light somewhat below ground level but that would probably only work on the section immediately to the left of your chimney (those a/c or heating units to the far left might make it harder for you to place a well light where you need it).

 

I'm not really worried about the back of the house right now. That's a project for another day. I'm trying to plan the front.

 

I don't know if I prefer down or up to be honest. I worry about the beam spread on any of the buddy lights but I will likely have issues with uplights due to how narrow the flower bed is on the right side of the house. I also have inground drain pipes so I couldn't put a light out near the sidewalk any way. Do you want them closer to the house to "graze" the walls?

Just thinking out loud, could I make a glare guard out of PVC for the puck light that has a slit in the side for the wire? This would mount in the soffit board which is probably only 1/4" thick anyway.

Right now I'm using 120VAC landcape spots on the windows and front porch. It doesn't look terrible, just too white and bright.