Hi everyone, I’d love a little help designing my landscape lighting. I have some very basic ideas, but I’ve seen other threads where really helpful recommendations have been provided. As designed I was thinking: 3x Top Dog spotlights splitting the columns - either surfaced mounted on the porch or possibly in front of the hedges 2x light posts at the front of the beds A few other ideas I’ve been thinking about, but struggling a bit with: Adding a spotlight on the left side of the big window - the hydrangeas are very large here and back against the house. The house also has an overhang of 1 foot between the first and 2nd floor Considering puck lighting in the walkway, but unsure if it will be more trouble than it’s worth I have no clue what to light the right side of the house. Also possibly complicated by the driveway, so getting any wires to that side of the house may be difficult. Looking forward to the suggestions - thanks in advance!
Hi, Jeff. I diagrammed your photo to show you one possible approach to lighting your home. I like your idea for lighting your columns and I think either attaching fixtures to the porch directly below the columns or staking them in front of the hedges. For the latter approach, you might need a short riser to get your fixtures high enough that the light output isn’t blocked by the top of your hedges. For your path lights (is that what you mean by light posts?), I would instead consider placing one at the base of your steps and perhaps one off to the right of your porch in that little patch of mulch off to the right of your porch. Why do I suggest that? In those locations, the fixtures ar much less likely to become trip hazards and they’ll be less vulnerable to lawn maintenance equipment like mowers and trimmers. Bear in mind that with a wide enough beam spread, you can illuminate a fairly large area (even with those two fixtures some distance apart. I noticed the soffit lights above your garage door. Because you have relatively deep soffits (including that overhang), that’s a good low-profile way to light your home and eliminate the challenge of discreetly mounting fixtures to the facade of your house. You could, either stake spotlights on the ground beneath that overhang or install soffit lights. Alternatively, you could introduce some light to that area by placing a flood light or two in front of your hydrangea. I’d also consider soffit lights flanking the windows above your garage. Since I don’t know where your electrical outlets are located, I will only say that you may have to get creative wrt routing your wiring. Depending on where your outlet is located, you might be able to take advantage of deep expansion joints in your driveway or cracks that would enable you to discreetly route wiring from one area of your yard to another. If you’re completely landlocked (so to speak), you might have to figure out how to route wiring through your gutters. I would also strongly encourage you to look back at some of the dozens of lighting plans that have been previously posted for ideas on how to create a lighting plans based on the unique architecture and other features of your home and landscaping. HTH to get you started.
Appreciate all of the feedback. Downlighting for the soffits is a great suggestion. I’ll have to explore that a bit more. Are the Top Dogs going to be way to much light given the relatively short distance most of them will be throwing? The only one that has any real distance would be the one on the side of the house by the driveway. I believe they have dimming capability, but would I buying way more light than I need? Would one of the mini’s suffice do you think? I’ve read to keep lights away from the windows, however I noticed you put them under the 3rd story windows. Thats attic space so it wouldn’t hurt, but curious to hear more about why you recommended that.
Ultimately, the amount of light you want to introduce to your house and yard is a matter of personal preference. There aren’t any hard and fast rules. After some time looking at various properties in my neighborhood and looking at photos online, I learned what lighting approaches I like and don’t like. In a few cases, the light output of regular size and mini fixtures are virtually the same. Where fixtures installed are likely to be more visible, one might choose to go with more compact fixtures. Generally, it’s inadvisable to aim fixtures at windows but there are times (such as the one you mentioned) where it’s perfectly reasonable to break that rule. If no one in the home will be negatively impacted and the look works for you, it might be just fine. If your lights are turned off after everyone has gone to bed or if you have light blocking window treatments, you might feel that light intrusion isn’t an issue. Otoh, I learned fairly soon after installing my lights several years ago that after dark, it can be difficult to see outside of your windows with lights shining into the windows. Even though I have our lights timed to turn off at midnight, I ultimately decided against focusing lights near my windows.
Ended up going with the Volt Essential kit which has 4 spotlights and 2 path lights. I imagine I’ll find uses for these, even if I end up upgrading to the Top Dog spotlights at some point. Not entirely sure how I want to attack the down lights yet, but planning to get up into the attack and poke around a bit.
Hi, Jeff. A couple things. First, sorry I overlooked your question regarding fixture recommendations. IMO, the only really crucial difference among the lamp ready spotlights is that glare guard (aka shroud or shield) and the lamp cover for the Fat Boy are a unit.That is, when you remove the lamp cover to insert or replace your lamp, you're simultaneously removing the glare guard. Put another way, wrt directing light output, the Top Dog is a bit more versatile. If you decide to go for puck lights and you have access from inside your attic, you might just be in luck. If you have a fear of heights or concerns about safely installing puck lights, I highly recommend that you hire a contractor to do the soffit lights. Like you, I have a portico and I paid my roofer a little extra when he came out to clean our gutters to install uplights up there. Finally, I somehow originally missed where you said you planned to use three spotlights to illuminate your columns. Could you clarify what you have in mind? Was just curious. Thanks.
Sorry my post wasn’t clear. I meant 3x total spotlights, not 3 for the columns. I’m eager to get my hands on these fixtures so I can see how things look and where I’ll want to add more light.
The last thing I want to add for now is that I’ve been trying to encourage people to think about the overall mood and impact they want to create for themselves and for those who visit their homes. People often want reassurances about how much light is enough or too much and I think asking ourselves what kind of impression we want to create is a better way to begin to zero in on the ideal amount of light that works for us. This is especially important when we’re considering installing soffit lighting or other lighting that will be installed high up on the house or in trees.
I thought I’d provide an update now that I’ve gotten the starter kit installed. No downlighting yet, but this was a low cost of entry and exactly what I needed to get started. In the first image from the front of the house, I’ve included a picuture with the porch light off and then one with it on. In the second image it shows the side view and the original mockup. I think there’s room for improvement still, but I’m already really happy with how it looks. Some of the things I’m noticing and interested in feedback on: I feel like I could benefit from some additional lighting around the front beds, as they have a lot of heavy shadows. I feel like the columns are unevenly lit and I should play around with the location. Specifically the far left column has a huge shadow. The lights are currently just off the steps and pointed outwards. The tree on the left is shining into a bedroom window. Im wondering if it would be better to put the light directly under the tree and light upwards. Currently it’s a few feet away and point at the house a bit. There are some significant shadows on the house that look a little odd, but I want to be mindful of over lighting the house. Any thoughts here? Other feedback?
I think you're off to a promising start. Good job lighting the portico. All of these kits are high quality but unfortunately, other than brightness levels, they don't alway allow for lots of configurability (more on that below). What's great about these fixtures is that after you've lived with them for a while, you'll start to zero in on what you'll need as you upgrade your plan. IMO, the 5W lamps can be more than needed in certain situations. I noticed, for instance, that the light on your tree is still quite bright even as it reaches the dormers. If you don't want the light shining into your windows, you can angle the fixture so that it's more vertical. You could also try switching to a lower lumens bulb (the 4W or 2W adjustable beam spread would be my recommendation). Also, bear in mind that the foliage on your tree will block a lot of that light output during growing seasons. Suggestions? First, so that you're lighting all four of the columns fairly uniformly, I would try to match the positions and settings on the fixtures as closely as possible. Ultimately, I think you will find that illuminating the columns individually provides the look you want. The hydrangea look phenomenal. For some serious curb appeal, consider a flood light in front of that section. You can angle it so that the light doesn't shine higher than your flower box. Your path lights put out a 12 ft diameter pool of light. Unless you want or need that much light concentrated in one small area, I recommend staggering them or placing them where they will do the most good. These are functional. Ideally, they should blend into your surroundings so that what the human eye see are pools of light. Perhaps highlight your steps and/or the area where there's a transition (like the curve in your driveway asphalt or the transition from mulch to asphalt). I also highly recommend that you move them a foot or so away from the walkway edge. After you've had them for a while, you'll probably manage to instinctively avoid accidentally bumping into them. People delivering packages to your door or a new fridge delivery or the person pushing the snow blower might not be as observant. Hope this helps.
Incredible feedback - thank you! I love the flood light idea. I’ll be looking into that to fill in the void below the bay window. I also felt it was a little overpowering. I’ve tried repositioning the light right next to the trunk and shooting up vertically. It’s better for now, and I’ll see what happens in the spring once it fills in. I hadn’t considered the lower wattage bulbs either, so I’ll likely buy some 2 watt bulbs as another option. Good call on moving the walkway lights out and I do think something on the steps may be good. The columns are tripping me up a bit. I’m going to try placing them behind the shrubs, rather than in front of them. There isn’t much space. Maybe some risers to bring them up to be horizontal with the landing. With how close they columns are to each other I fear adding a light for each column may be overpowering, but maybe the lower watt bulbs will change that too.
Always glad to help. Aiming a light at some shrub or tree or other ground level feature is a simple but effective technique I often recommend when someone wants to fill in a dark area on the facade of their house. Until I first saw 3w at night on my house, I didn’t have a meaningful understanding of LED lumens vs incandescent lumens. I eventually stepped down to 2W and 1w on the facade of the house. Because of our dark night sky, it still seems bright but it’s a more subdued brightness, if that makes sense. The first time the mailman cut through our yard and almost stomped on one of my path lights, I realized I had to take protective measures. This may seem self evident but I think you should keep in mind that you’re going to get a very different effect when you have the fixtures immediately below the columns (i.e. grazing) vs installing them a foot or so away from them. The molding will be highlighted differently, for instance.
