I am looking to light the front of my house and I am a bit overwhelmed. I talked to a local lighting store but the help was less than I expected and I am afraid the result would be underwhelming. For some background, this is a newer construction in a rural setting with little ambient lighting. I don't want a design that will overwhelm the setting. In general I like designs that focus on the landscape but I understand both the landscape and home need to be considered. We have some trees that although they are young would look good lit, the spruce on the left side, a couple japanese maples in the middle and the three magnolias on the right side. I don't really want path lights (though I may add later if needed). There are two bedrooms to consider, the two second story windows is a bedroom and the double window to the right of the porch is a guest room. Aside from that I don't have any preferences. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
I'd be happy to help with some general recommendations for you! As far as the front goes, you could consider: *More of a minimalist approach - target a few key areas for functionality and beauty. Sort of a consistent pattern as well; 3 uplights on columns with 3 uplights on each of the front portions of the home as well. Uplights with narrow beam spreads between the windows, and ones with even narrower beam spreads for the columns. For wider open patches of wall, a subtle floodlight could look great (such as the wider space to the left of the window bay). LED puck lights can be recessed into soffits or surface mounted as needed to provide downlight for the upper area (if gutters were added to the window bay you could consider gutter mounted spotlights) I know you said you weren't keen to path lights at the moment, but I just included them to show you what placement could look like if you considered them in the future (they do help with providing subtle area lighting for garden beds while simultaneously illuminating a pathway. *This is sort of the "Budget is no concern/targetting every space" option for the front. Essentially illuminating all of the space between windows and illuminating the front garden beds. For areas with taller spaces, like the (2) middle lights on the garage(?), you could bump up the wattage (i.e. if you were using 3Ws w/ 15-degree spreads on the corners, you could use 5W with the same degree & color temp to illuminate the peak more.) For newly planted trees it can be a bit tough to make recommendations - the trees are starting so small and can arguably grow exponentially within a year or so. For starters, I'd definitely recommend using lamp-ready fixtures on the trees so that you can adjust the strength and width of the light output as needed as the trees grow. Maples, magnolias and spruces can all grow to be decent size trees so, I'd recommend starting with either an MR16 spotlight or in-ground light and starting with lower wattages (likely 2W) and upping the wattage and/or beam spread overtime as the trees grow over the years. I know you said you were a bit overwhelmed - if you wanted to take some time to digest these and possibly other recommendations and layout your own planning, I'd be happy to help with some exact fixture recommendations if needed!
Phenomenal house, CCP. The only idea I would add to Evan's usual thoughtful recommendations is to consider illuminating that retaining wall on the right with a couple of floodlights. That is, assuming you consider that part of the front of your house.
CCP: If I could be rude and interject myself into this discussion, I wish to share an observation. In my early morning walks in my neighborhood to check out how others have lit their houses with landscape lighting, I have sometime seen what I refer to as a “cave” effect. The homeowners have done an excellent job of lighting facades and trees and sidewalks but have left out garage doors, courtyard entrance ways, recessed porches and porte cocheres (especially porte cocheres), resulting in a dark hole in their lighting scheme. You can also see this in a few of the postings on this forum where the poster has shared the final results of their lighting project. My house suffered from this in that the front entrance is a gate leading into a courtyard and finally to a front door which isn’t visible from the street. The solution was dimmable smart bulbs. In looking at the close up photos of your front porch, I noted the obvious fixture over the front door and what appear to be recessed fixtures in the porch ceiling. I appreciate that the purpose of this forum is to promote the sale and use of Volt products. However, if you find that the uplighting of the front porch columns results in a perceived, darkened porch area, I would suggest adding dimmable smart bulbs to the porch fixtures - a standard A19 for the fixture over the door and Par38s or BR30s in the overhead fixtures. You can then adjust their brightness to fill in the cave and not distract from the Volt lighting, producing consistent lighting across the entire front of your house. Just a thought, rude or otherwise. The videos and articles in the Volt University section are an excellent way to learn how to do this yourself and save the cost of a contractor. Some of the stuff I have seen on my morning walks suggests they aren't worth it. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different Volt fixtures, placements and wattages. That’s part of the fun of doing these projects. Bob
Thanks everyone for the comments. I will respond in reverse order in which they were received. RM - Like you my morning runs are spent critiquing landscape lighting. I have noticed the cave effect you mention as well as homes that are way too bright, homes with "hotspots" where spotlights are pointed at brick leaving a bright spotlight mark and homes with fixtures that use way too cold bulbs for me. You bring up a good point about the lighting the interior of the porch and I think that adding a dimmer to recessed lights and/or the hanging fixture (they are on separate switches) would be a good way to handle it. I am confident with the help of the forum and Volt's guidance I will have a result that is far beyond what the lighting store suggested and even what a lighting contractor would provide. Meso - I do think that including the wall would be a good plan. There isn't much height to the wall, though. How can that be handled? My thoughts were to include lighting the larger trees in front. Would that be enough to bring light to that area or would it be better to actually illuminate the wall? Evan - Thanks for the feedback. First question is there another good way to illuminate the second story without soffit lights. This is going to be a DIY job and i was hoping to not have to get that high! I have a modified one of your pictures and are interested in your feedback. Yellow lights are to highlight landscape and red are on the house. I would probably size the transformer to handle path lights at a later time. Once we get a reasonable plan I would like to get your recommendation on Volt fixtures bulbs etc. Thanks again everyone for the input.
Glad to help, CCP. There’s no one perfect way to light a wall, IMO. It’s just a great feature that grabbed my attention. After more carefully considering the varying distances those trees and shrubs are from the wall, I can see how it might be challenging to light the wall evenly from the front. One approach that could work and look great would be a few deck lights (see link below) mounted on the wall. You’d have to be creative with hiding your cable but if you’re comfortable using a drill and know how to use masonry and brick friendly practices, that could look amazing. Alternatively, you could front light those small shrubs along that wall using shrouded or adjustable angle well lights (see other link below). I think this could be a good way to highlight the basic structure of the wall while keeping your plants as the primary focal points. Hope this helps. https://www.voltlighting.com/shop/landscape-lighting/cast-brass-deck-light-bronze https://www.voltlighting.com/shop/landscape-lighting/well-lights
Evan - it seems like you have been away from the forum for a bit. I welcome your recommendations on wattage, fixtures, and angles on the plan I showed above. Thanks for your help!
Hi, CCP. While you wait for additional feedback, I wanted to suggest a couple of pages (see links below) for you to check out and also share some observations from my own experiences creating and installing. First, from what I can see it looks like the widest beam spread you’ll be using on the house is 38 degrees (for that section to the left of your bay window and immediately to the right of your porch. It looks like Evan’s recommending a 24 degree beam spread for everywhere else on the house except for the porch columns where I suspect you’ll be using beam spreads +/- 12 degrees. Your beam spread options will sometimes vary depending on the fixture you choose, the wattage or lumens level you choose, and even the light color temperature you choose. And yes, that probably sounds overwhelming. But I promise you, it will all begin to make sense before too long. The thing to keep in mind is that whatever fixtures you go with, you want to select a beam spread as close as possible to the ones I mentioned above. If worse comes to worse, you can always tweak your beam spreads and light output using filters and lenses. Because it appears your home is sited where there’s not much ambient light, IMO you can achieve impressive results going with lumens in the lower range (3W max). I can tell you I was stunned by the output of my mostly 2W Spotlights and pathlights. It’s important to remember that your lighting output will be amplified to due to reflected light from many of the surfaces (especially the white painted columns and other areas, windows, and your walkway) they are illuminating. What I’m getting at is, light your house in whatever way you find appealing but keep in mind that you have to live there and sleep there. If you’ve got dark blinds or blackout curtains everywhere, then you likely won’t have to be concerned with light trespass too much. And if this all seems overwhelming to you, you can always choose a fixture and purchase a couple of bulbs with different beam spreads, lumens levels, and color temps before making a large purchase that you then find you need to exchange. Hope this helps. https://www.voltlighting.com/learn/choose-floodlights-landscape-lighting-project https://www.voltlighting.com/shop/led-bulbs https://www.voltlighting.com/learn/about-landscape-lighting-bulbs
i have picked out some fixtures for this project and would love some feedback. For all of the plants (1, 10, 14, 14, 14) I have G2 Fat Boy 38degree 2 watt. for the garage (2, 5) I have G2 Fat Boy 15degree 3 watt; (3, 4) same but with 5 watt for the two story part (7, 8) G2 Fat Boy 15degree 5 watt Porch columns lights (9) G2 Fat Boy 15 degrees 5 watt Wall washers (6, 11) G4 Infiniti 35 degree Wall washers (12, 13) G4 Infiniti 28 degree Any thoughts about fixtures, angles and wattages etc? Thanks again for all the help.
Hi, CCP. Spot on (no pun intended) with your choice for those young plants. A few choices I'm not sure I understand. First, I see where you're apparently trying to compensate for the different heights on the garage wall sections but I don't understand why you're not doing the same thing with 7 & 8 (whose height differential is even greater than that of the garage walls. I'd step down 8 to 3W. I think the right soffit will otherwise look significantly brighter than the left soffit on that section of the house. Because the porch columns are a bright white, they will reflect a lot of light. Just be mindful that the the 5Ws could make them (and the roofline) really stand out from the rest of the features of the house. If that's your intent then by all means, go with it. I'd use the same beam spread and wattage (or lumens) on 6, 11, and 13 (the three widest wall sections) and I'd use the same wattage and beam spread for 12 as you have for 2 & 5. Finally, I think I'd use a spot light on that far right corner of the house. My thinking is that it will look more cohesive if you highlight both corners of the house. But these are all my preferences. Feel free to take with a grain of salt.
I agree with your comments. I'm going to update my plan in a bit. Question for the wall sections 6, 11, 12, 13, would it be better to use the G2 fat boy spotlights with the appropriate angels instead of the infiniti G4 floodlights?
Just for the ease of uniformity, I’d use all of one fixture model (at least on the brick). IMO, that kind of uniformity is less crucial for your plants.
Here is the my updated thoughts: For all of the plants (1, 10, 14, 14, 14) G2 Fat Boy 38degree 2 watt. for the garage (2, 5) G2 Fat Boy 15degree 3 watt; (3, 4) same but with 5 watt for the two story part (7, 8) G2 Fat Boy 15degree 5 watt (I'm actually hoping to use place #8 on the ground, so I'll keep the watts the same for now) Porch columns lights (9) G2 Fat Boy 15 degrees 3 watt Wall washers (6, 11,13) G2 Fat Boy 60 degree 3 watt ((I wonder if 3 watts is enough). Wall washers (12, far right corner of the house) G2 Fat Boy 15degree 3 watt Another question the Top Dog is certainly an upgrade over the Fat Boy spots. The Top Dog is cast vs the pressed construction of the Fat Boy. Are there any advantages from an adjustability standpoint? What else should I consider when considering the two fixtures?
The Fatboy is a great solid fixture but the Top Dog has far superior adjustability. As with the All Star, the Top Dog’s glare guard both rotates and telescopes. You can also use those fixture models without their guards if desired. The Fatboy’s glare guard only rotates and because its lens/cap and glare guard are one unit, you can’t remove the guard without leaving the lamp and fixture interior exposed to the elements. So while you can still aim the Fatboy, rotate the glare guard and choose from different lamp beam spreads, the other two fixtures allow you even greater control of the shape and size of the light projection. In my own plan, I use Fatboys where I just needed a solid workhorse fixture to make a large group of shrubs glow from within. The fixtures themselves aren’t even visible. Where I’m projecting light onto walls or other fairly flat surfaces, I prefer the versatility of Top Dogs or All Stars. FYI, if you want to avoid having to do a lot of splicing (it’s not that hard, I’m just kinda lazy sometimes), you should absolutely consider the All Star (which offers a 25’ lead wire option) over the Top Dog. It’s not just about time but fewer splices means fewer potential failure points. My two cents. Anyway, this all looks very promising. If I haven’t said it already, I think you may find this more fun and less daunting if you think of your plan as a template or framework as opposed to a formula. A benefit to going a la carte (as opposed to relying on the pre-configured kits) is that you’re able to get a bit more creative. That is a long way of saying, prepare to do some tweaking (and it sounds like you are) and be ready for challenges that may require you to alter your plan.
Mesodude - thanks for your help. I think that I have a good start. Do you think that the angles and wattages I have are at least close to being balanced and lighting the house evenly and appropriately? I am sure there will be tweaks and changes. In your opinion, do you see anything that jumps out at you?
Lights are here and the install will begin soon. Last question (for now), how far from the brick should I install the lights? Naturally it will probably have to be adjusted, what I have noticed is 12-18" seems to be the norm here. Thoughts?
Sounds like you're ready to take the plunge. I'm not sure there's an official distance but much of what I've read suggests that one foot is more or less the border between grazing a wall and washing a wall. Usually when a homeowner has some stonework or some remarkable brickwork (older bricks or extruded brick or other brick detail) or other textured walls, I suggest that they graze the walls (fixtures a foot or less from the wall). If there's nothing especially remarkable about the brick or masonry, I'll suggest that they wash the walls (placing the lights a foot or so away from the walls. Washing will emphasize the texture less and the color more. You have that band of brick detail spanning the facade of your first level. I'd experiment to see if you can strike a nice balance between emphasizing that while still showing the brick color off. In my case, I have a pair of vertical bands of brickwork above my front portico that I'm grazing but all the other "plain" brickwork sections are being washed. You have a trickier situation but I think if you experiment with angling and fixture distance, you'll land on an effect you're happy with.
My spots are 12 inches from my facade. I was pleasantly surprised how well the hex louver lenses enhance the grazing effect. Something to consider for later experimentation. Bob
