Hi Everyone. I am planning out my Volt system and could use some help with where to best place the lights. My main question is around how to light the bushes/trees that are around the house or to ignore them and light the home behind them. If I light the bushes, then the home will be darker. If I light the home, then the bushes might block a lot of that light in the summer. Would love some thoughts! The image below is my intention to light the bushes, but that might not be the best given what is going on on the left. Ignore the type of lights being used. I just found some on the internet.
Hi, SeePlanet. If you look back at some of my previous posts, you'll notice that one thing I say repeatedly is that there's many different ways to create a coherent lighting plan. I also encourage people new to lighting to have fun with the creative process and not to let the fear that you won't get it "perfect" right out of the gate paralyze you. Ultimately what's "best" is what looks most appealing to you. What I recommend is that you start with a plan that you like but also be prepared to tweak it and move things around as you discover what you like or don't like about the placement of fixtures. Below I've posted a couple of photos to show you that you can use the facade as a projection screen (photo with the ornamental grasses). I also want to show you that you can combine lighting for your house facade and your trees and shrubs to create a coherent plan without feeling that you're neglecting any areas of your house and yard (as with the red maples photo). I also diagrammed your photo to highlight some different ways you could light your house and yard. In the first photo, I've highlighted three different areas of your first level facade and uplit the tree that's on the far right side of the house. IMO, if you illuminated only those four areas, you'd have a solid lighting plan. You could front light that tree (so that it projects its shadow on the house. You could backlight the tree and instead uplight the facade behind it. You could flank that tree with spotlights so that it's illuminated from each side. All of those approaches would look phenomenal, imo. What's important is that no matter which of those approaches you go with, no section of your house will be overly dark. If you wanted to include your upper level as part of your plan, you could illuminate both the dormer and that taller gable. If you really wanted to go crazy, you could even illuminate your chimney. In the second plan, I only directly illuminate the facade in those first two sections. I then uplight the trees and shrubs indicated so that the facade behind them is basically used as a projection screen. They're being illuminated but the plantings are the primary focus on that side of the house. The purpose of the third photo is to encourage you to think about how, depending on your choice of fixtures, you can sometimes accomplish more than one goal at a time. At my house, instead of path lights along the driveway, I've placed downlights in tall trees nearby to "moonlight" my driveway. People are often reluctant to place path lights in their lawn areas for fear that they'll be damaged by lawn care equipment. You're planning to illuminate that stone with your address on it. What if you instead put your first path light there so you're illuminating your address and marking the start of your walkway? Or maybe you want to place a path light in front of that short shrub to the left of your front door. Now you've highlighted your steps, one of your path fixtures is less vulnerable to an encounter with a lawnmower and you've introduced some indirect and reflected light to that area of your facade. The point of this exercise is to encourage you and others to be ready to make lemonade from situations that seem less than ideal for creating the lighting plan of your dreams. Anyway, I hope this helps to get you started.
