I am interested in adding lighting to accent this house. The east side faces a road and I would like to light all three sides. The house is two story and I would like to get the lighting to the second story. I have read that lighting added to gutters/eaves would be best however that would be difficult. I would prefer to use ground uplighting if possible. I am new to this and am not sure which volt fixtures and bulbs would be most appropriate. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Hey David, Beautiful house and property! I'd be happy to help with some general recommendations. This is a bit tricky of a layout - mostly considering the left side of the house. Some potential spots are a bit more straightforward - like highlighting the corners of the front window bay, and highlighting the corners of the house altogether (marked in yellow). If you were keen on the symmetry, the spots marked in red would be ones to consider removing; overloading one side might look a bit off. In-ground lights or spotlights can offer the same up-lighting effects - it would depend on preference if you wanted low-profile in-ground lights, or wanted more adjustability of the light output from a spotlight. Lamp-ready versions use bulbs and integrated means the fixture has a built in LED. I personally prefer lamp-ready myself for the max customization of light output and easy replacement if needed. If you went with MR16 fixtures, I'd recommend a 5W LED with no larger than a 38-degree beam spread for these front spots. You could consider going even more narrow for the column to the left (15 degree is the most narrow option). Regarding the left side, it looks like there is already light for the patio areas. Path lights around the perimeter of the patio would be ideal to consider - this way they'd also run along the pathway (marked in green). You could consider illuminating the 3 middle 2nd story columns from below, but the uplights would need to be precisely adjusted to prevent any excessive glare for someone sitting on the first floor patio. Perhaps consider applying LED puck lights to the 2nd story rail or soffit above for a down lighting effect in that upper area. If sticking to the symmetrical approach, you could add (2) fixtures to the column to ensure both sides are properly illuminated, then on this side of the house apply 1 additional fixture to the opposite corner. Path lights around the perimeter again if you desire illumination for walking around the house; you could essentially add these in the garden beds around the entire house. For the back area, you could consider adding a floodlight to the tree. If you wanted more illumination on that backside of the house, it would essentially be filling in the spaces between windows or other features with whichever uplight(s) you decide to use. There is a floodlight visible on this side already, but if you wanted more illumination on the home likely consider the same symmetrical approach with uplighting, and the path lights in the garden bed would provide area lighting at night if desired. Any of our classic LED path lights would look beautiful with your home, and we also have some decorative LED path lights if you prefered to add something a bit more ornate. It looks like there may be a number of trees (small and large) around your property that you could consider uplighting as well. The ideal type and amount of fixtures to use would depend on the size of the target tree.
