I am planning to use the G2 fat boy spotlights on the columns around my porch. I am also planning to use 1 or 2 G2 spotlight on the front left side next to entry way. Where I really need some assistance is lighting and placement for the 2nd story of the house. Any suggestions for these areas? Also, suggestions for the large spot on the side of the house? Could I use downlighting there? That is a gravel/stone patio area so I don’t have a spot for a spotlight on the ground. Any suggestions or ideas are welcome and thanks in advance!
Mesodude2, I would love your input if you have any ideas. Looks like you have provided good feedback to others. Just needing a little guidance before jumping into this project.
Hey, Chad. I've diagrammed your photos to suggest some possible approaches to illuminating those upper level sections of your house. My suggestion might or might not be feasible, depending on the way your roof is shaped (which, unfortunately, I don't have a clear sense of from your photos). On the side of your house, it looks like you can install a pair of spots parallel to each other fairly easily. On the front of your house, it's not clear to me that there's an easy way to install the lights parallel to each other in a way that you cane evenly illuminate the sections flanking that window. You have a grand wraparound porch and I like the idea of illuminating some or all of those columns. There's multiple ways you could accomplish this. One way is to install soffit lighting in the locations I've indicated on the photo of the side of your house. The main benefits of this approach, imho, is that you're illuminating both the features of your house and the landscaping below. It also gives you some "path" lighting immediately around your house. Moreover, with soffit lights, you don't have to worry about clutter or damage to ground staked lights. Alternatively, you could do something like downlighting the pairs of columns at the top of your steps and uplighting some or all of the remaining columns. If you wanted to show off some of the stone below the siding, you could floodlight groups of shrubs or spotlight individual shrubs. At the end of the day, you'll need to decide how much light you want to introduce to your house and yard overall. If you've read some of my previous responses, you've probably noticed that I encourage a painterly approach to landscape lighting. You have a charming home and what I'm saying in essence is that it's easy to go from warm and inviting to ocean liner . But where that line is is a matter of personal preference. Btw, it looks like there is some carving or relief on the pediment above those pairs of columns. If so, that's one of those unique features of a home, I encourage people to illuminate. You could probably stick a hardscaping light or a puck light (the fixture type you'd use for your soffit lighting) there. The orange graphic on the side of your house at the base of the steps represents a path light. Again, depending on what other lighting you install, you might or might not want to put a path light there so that people can safely negotiate the steps. Hope this helps to get you started.
Mesodude2, thank you so much for your input. I haven't even thought about using soffit lighting, but I like that suggestion. Also, great idea on highlighting the carving above the front double columns. This helps and greatly appreciate the feedback!
Glad to help, Chad. Houses are unique and I try to encourage people to highlight remarkable architectural features and also take advantage of structural elements that may make it easier to install certain types of fixtures than others. Hope you have fun with the process and I and I'm sure others would love to see your results, if you're open to sharing your finished project.
