Please help with recommendations for lighting a pathway, house and possibly trees. I recently put in a new paver pathway and pulled out all the old (120V) lighting fixtures and most of the plantings. I have enclosed my pictures and questions in the attached compressed .pdf ... because of the file size limitations. Hope this works. (Let me know if it doesn't please.) Thanks for your help! --Charlie
Hey Charlie, I'd be happy to offer some basic advice. For anything more in depth/complex installation wise, it may be best to consult a contractor. Overall, you're on the correct path plan wise. A lot of the design aspects are preferential to your style - there are usually multiple ways to illuminate any given feature. 1.) A staggered approach is most common for installing path & area lights. The ideal spacing would be dependent on the style of path light (mainly the hat/shade style for traditional path lights). The diameter of the hat/shade will influence the diameter of illumination; we typically provide the diameter of illumination (in feet) on the product detail pages. Example: Max Spread has 16ft diameter of illumination; for continuous illumination along a path, space these fixtures about 16 feet apart. For independent pools of light, space about 20 feet apart. 2W or 3W LED bulbs are ideal - 2W if you prefer subtle. 2700K (warm white) is the most common color temperature. 2.) For illuminating your home, lamp-ready spotlights are most commonly used. 15-38 degree beam spreads are most common. A wider beam spread (likely 60 degree) could be more ideal for the wider window space on the right side. If you wanted to apply a grazing effect to highlight the texture of the stones, you could place the spotlights within 12" of the exterior wall and adjust the aiming accordingly at night. Grazing effects typically wouldn't be applied to siding. For brightness, I'd likely go no brighter than 5W LED bulbs; 3W likely more ideal if you desire subtle illumination. 3.) For trees - uplighting is most common approach and would match uplighting on the home. Larger, taller trees typically require powerful fixtures with narrow to moderate beam spreads. For MR16s - 5 or 7W LEDs with 60-110 degree beam spreads. Sometimes using more than one fixture can help to illuminate the tree evenly and add a "3D" effect. For shorter, wider trees, floodlights would be more ideal or simply using wider beam spread M16 bulbs in a spotlight. 3-5W LED bulbs likely most ideal for average & smaller size trees.
Thanks for the reply! Any comments to help decide on the fixtures I'm looking (no beam spread is posted in the specifications on the website for either product - do you have this info)? And any feeback on the architectural features or plants that might be worth highlighting?
Style wise, I typically always recommend one of our classic LED path lights. The Max Spread Path Light is our most common path light - it complements most landscape and architecture styles well and is offered in 24" and 12" (mini) version. We do have more ornate, decorative styles of path lights if you desired something different. Regarding what features to illuminate - from a glance at the photos, natural stone walls can look beautiful when illuminated. Path lighting in the garden beds would simultaneously illuminate the walkways while highlighting smaller flowers/plants. The small Maple and larger sized tree on the closer, left side of the house could look beautiful if illuminated. And, the trees up front (Redbud & Dogwood) could also look beautiful if illuminated. A path light in the middle of the garden bed surrounding the mailbox could add a nice touch as well. For the trees, the viewing angles can determine the ideal amount of fixtures you'd want to use - essentially you want to achieve balanced illumination from every major viewing angle without over saturating the tree with too much illumination.
