Closing on our new home in less than a week. First project that I’m doing myself is outside lighting. To be honest the choices of different bulbs, fixtures, filters, defusers etc is overwhelming. I think I have it figured out and I’ll find information elsewhere that says “don’t do that”. So I decided to come here for help. Hit me with your drawn on pictures of my house. Where would you place lights. Types? Watts? I’m open to all suggestions. From left to right: the two window on the left are into the garage. The area infront of them framed by the house and the sidewalk will be shrub/flower bed. Third window from the left is the guest room and in front of that wind is covered porch. To the right of the front door is a bedroom. Area infront of that and the rest of the house will be front yard/grass. All help is appreciated!
Hey Aaron, Great potential! I'd be happy to help with some general recommendations for a starting point. These could really change once landscaping is actually added as well - once trees and shrubs are added, you may want to highlight those features or even utilize them for a design aspect such as shadowing. This design approach is centered around up lighting - a combination of spotlights and/or in-ground lights mainly. Either would do well to highlight the columns and accent the corners of the home. For spots with less coverage from shrubs/plants, in-ground fixtures would offer the low-profile approach to keep light sources concealed. Narrow beam spreads for the columns (15°). For the wider spaces between some windows, you could consider a lower output floodlight for subtle wall-washing, or stick with either a spotlight or in-ground light with moderate beam spread (at least 38°). A floodlight could also be used to cast a whimsical shadowing effect through plants or a tree - for example, if a smaller tree like a crepe myrtle was placed at that far right corner, one floodlight would do well to accent the area while simultaneously highlighting the tree and texture of the backdrop. 3W MR16s would likely be an ideal peak output for most of the fixtures illuminating the home - 5 or 7W could oversaturate the light colored bricks. For the walk way, a combo of classic path light style staggered down the path would be ideal - but the styles and placement will be very dependent on landscaping that gets added. A side note - starting the install now (laying cable/conduit, placing hubs, mounting transformer) would be extremely convenient. Then, when sod and landscaping is added, all you'd have to do is basically drop in the fixtures, wire them up, and make some fine-tuning adjustments at night. From there, if you saw any additional spots where you might desire a fixture, the hubs and wiring are ready for that as well.
