I'm planning a lighting upgrade for this spring or summer, and I'm trying to get a budget and plan together. I see that there is some good tutorials and videos here on the site but I have some more questions. I'd like to also light up my driveway but I REALLY don't want to have to mow/edge around the normal path lights. Does anyone have any other recommendations there even if I had to glue some sort of pucks down to the edge of the concrete. The driveway is 90' long. The house 65 feet wide. I'm looking for advice on which parts of my house to light up and which plants to light up. I have power available to me on the right corner of my house there by the silver car. I could run power this summer to the left corner as well. I have a hollow pipe that runs under the driveway about 1/3 of the way down so I can chase wires if need be. I'd struggle to run wires onto the corners directly in front of the garage unless I drilled through the mortar joints and run it underneath my house. What do you all think I'd need to do my house and yard justice?
Beautiful home/property! Here are some general recommendations for uplighting the architecture. Any MR16 lamp-ready spotlights would likely be ideal for the uplighting. The style of light would come down to personal preference/budget. Applying a "grazing" effect would beautifully highlight the texture of the bricks; you can accomplish this by placing the fixtures within 12" of the wall. For the spot in front of the garage where the driveway meets the brick, a brass surface mount would likely be needed and the wire would ideally be ran in nearby expansion joint in the concrete or the mortar joint as you mentioned. This particular spot will obviously be a bit more laborious, but ideally you want to keep the design balanced illumination wise (no awkward dark spots). Bulb wise, 2700k is most common color temperature, 3W is ideal for subtle illumination which I personally prefer (I'd certainly recommend no brighter than 5W MR16s). Beam spread wise, 60 degrees likely most ideal for all spots. For adding some illumination to the 2nd story area above the front door for consistency, you could consider using a gutter mount with a mini spotlight and adjusting towards the peak of the gable. For adding illumination to the driveway, beacon style in-ground lights would likely be most ideal. These can be recessed into the ground, and provide directional illumination towards the driveway. The brass faceplates are quited durable - the trimmer line from a weed whacker would likely cause some light scuffing if grazed, but wouldn't harm major components. The lights wouldn't be drive-over rated for a automobile necessarily, but could tolerate smaller lawn mowers likely (in the event you accidentally hit one with a mower wheel). Other than this option, if the trees off to the right of the driveway are relatively close, downlights could provide a natural moonlight & shadowing effect on the driveway for illumination from above (personally, one of my favorite design effects on longer driveways, but a bit more laborious to install as well).
