Need some help. I put together a rough design (see pic attached) for the front/side of my house. I specifically need some advice on numbers 9 thru 11 (circled in red in the picture). I need them to symmetrically match the opposite end of the house numbers 1 thru 3. However, the sidewalk was poured directly touching the brick of the house. If I put the uplighting in the grass it will blind everyone who walks down the sidewalk as they pass. I was planning on installing the Volt G4 Infiniti 30 spotlights @ 35 degrees in every location I have labeled in the picture and selecting a different degree Optic for the columns (number 5 thru 8) to 17 degrees. And a 24 degree for the flagpole. For the two lights in front of the garage doors, I am planning to do puck lights. I can't figure out what to do with numbers 9 thru 11. I would either have to wall mount them to the brick or go downlighting all around which I don't want to do. We live on top of a hill so uplighting would be the best route cosmetically. Could I do puck lights (recessed in the sidewalk)? Would that mess up the symmetry of the light across the front of the house? Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks!
Fellow landscape lighting enthusiast here. People are often more creative than they realize until they step outside of their comfort zone. I diagrammed your photo to show an approach that I might take if I were lighting your home. Basically what I've done is avoided your windows while evenly illuminating the sections flanking both of those windows. Right now, your architecture and landscaping are very angular. That's great if you're going for a formal look. Depending on how adventurous you're willing to be with your landscaping, there's easily a gazillion ways you could address the challenge you mentioned. You asked about symmetry and while that's important, I frequently encourage people to think about lighting their homes and yards more in terms of creating a coherent plan. I've included a couple of photos to illustrate just some of the different ways you could light that area. First, you could place planters or shrubs or trees in your lawn in front of that section of the house. With the planters at the edge of the sidewalk, you could easily hide a couple of fixtures there. With trees or shrubs there, you could create a mulch bed underneath (which would protect the fixtures somewhat from foot traffic and lawn equipment). Alternatively, instead of using the trees and shrubs or planters to hide your fixtures, make them a focal point instead. How cool would it look to have a couple of crimson red maples in front of those sections where you were considering installing lights? What if you front lit trees or shrubs (or a statue, etc) in front of that section of the house, so that they project shadows on the walls behind them? And I would say, don't overlook some of the features on your house and in your yard that could give your plan more depth and complexity. Why not light up that retaining wall? Maybe you want to consider uplighting that white area above your garage roofs. Finally, you expressed a concern about your well lights blinding your guests at night. That's easily addressed with grates or honeycomb louvers. If you do go the well light route, I highly recommend that you use it for both sides of your house and I also recommend that you use the more versatile (but pricier, unfortunately) fixtures that allow you to raise, lower, and pivot the lamp housing. That will allow you to aim your lights more precisely. HTH and hope you have fun with your project.
Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to respond and share examples – that was incredibly helpful! This was my first attempt at a lighting design, and I generally find it challenging to think creatively or outside the box with things like this. We moved into this house last October and focused heavily on interior work, which left no time for landscaping last spring. Landscaping is now at the top of my to-do list for next spring. I’m planning to install a junction hub centrally in the front yard, so when we do the landscaping and want to add more lights, it will be simple and require minimal work. I love your idea for the trees and removing the middle light to avoid the windows. It never even crossed my mind to add lights to the retaining wall or the white space above the garage, but I think that would look amazing! Please feel free to share any additional tips or suggestions. It would not hurt my feelings whatsoever. God bless, Drew
You're welcome. It's natural to feel somewhat intimidated at first but the learning curve is not very steep at all. The main thing to remember that you're working with low voltage lighting. It's very safe for the most part and it's fairly difficult to make any kind of catastrophic mistake while wiring your transformer/fixtures. Also, it's to your advantage to have put off landscape projects until now because now you're able to plan your lighting with your future landscaping in mind and vice versa. With a blank slate and no shrubs or trees planted yet, you have greater control of how lighting will look against the facade and other features of your house. My only other piece of advice for now (besides to have fun with the process), is to resist the temptation to go super bright (especially if your night sky is fairly dark) and focus instead on highlighting the house rather than illuminating the entire facade. Put another way, having your hair a solid color can look great but highlights done well can take your look from great to fantastic. It sounds like you're being very thoughtful in your planning, so you're already on the right path. HTH
