Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice on designing my landscaping, and I’d love to hear your suggestions! I have some general ideas, but I’ve seen some amazing advice in other threads and was hoping for something similar here. Here’s what I’m working with: 1. Existing plants: Cherry laurels, sunshine ligustrum, lemon lime nandina, and loropetalum. 2. Current layout: Beds around the house, a central tree, and a flag near the driveway. Here’s what I’m thinking so far: 1. Path lights scattered along the beds for ambiance and safety. 2. Spotlights to highlight architectural features (like columns by the garage) and possibly uplight the crepe myrtle in the front yard. 3. Considering lighting the flag and maybe incorporating some subtle lighting along the fence line for depth. I’d love to hear your thoughts on: • Placement ideas for the lights to create a balanced but striking look. • Recommendations on fixtues • Any creative ideas I might be overlooking! Looking forward to your suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help! Let me know if you want to add any specific details or adjust this further!
Hi, Jay. Want to first let you know I’m a landscape lighting enthusiast like yourself and don’t work for VOLT. I like many of your ideas and just want to offer a few tips to help guide you as you develop your plan. One thing I noticed right off is that your beam spreads are more or less the same. To add interest and complexity, I recommend that you consider configuring adjusting your beam spreads to correspond with the different sized regions of your house’s facade.The beam spreads on the right side of your house, for instance, will probably be at least triple that of the beam spread you’re using on the garage pillars. If I were you, I’d also consider adding some frosted lenses to your spots. This will soften the edges of your light output (see photo) so that and give your lighting a more refined and professional look. Ideally, you want to highlight the more remarkable features of your home’s facade and landscaping. Let’s highlight that cool brick work at the corners where your address numbers are. With a couple of spotlights there. You can highlight your flag, the brick work and your address number. Similarly, with some discreet spot lights, tucked into both of those gabled areas, you can highlight that circular raised brick work. You could even highlight your chimney. For your path lights, you can choose fixtures with wider or narrower output (blue ovals) to highlight more or less of your planting beds. Finally, you’re fortunate enough to have these nice deep soffits. They’re located low enough that, if you wanted to go with some or all downlights, adding soffit lighting would be a breeze. The great thing about soffit lighting is that you can easily light both facade and planting beds and even your walkways simultaneously. Hth to get you started.
Thank you so much for taking the time to put together such detailed feedback—it’s incredibly helpful and much appreciated! I do have a few questions to clarify if you don’t mind: 1. What specific fixtures do you recommend for the spot lights, pathway lighting, and the beds? 2. How many soffit lights would you suggest under the covered entry? 3. Where can I find the light diffusers or frosted lenses you mentioned? I really like your ideas for varying the beam spreads and highlighting key features like the chimney, gabled areas, and the address numbers. Your suggestions add a lot of depth and professionalism to the plan, and I’m excited to refine it further with these in mind. Thanks again for your guidance! Best, Jay
Glad to help Jay. Before I recommend specific fixture types and numbers of fixtures, I want to encourage you to think about how much overall light you want to include in your lighting plan. If you check out my most recent post to Jeff, I shared a few different landscape lighting photos that demonstrate the different moods one can create depending on brightness levels and fixture placement. Consider the overall look and feel you have in mind for your home. For instance, you have spotlights illuminating your garage door pillars. Will the sconces there be part of your lighting plan or will they only be on some of the time? If you illuminate that tree in front of your porch pillar there, will you still want/need those spotlights to illuminate it as well? Similarly, if you have soffit lighting on that right side of your house, will you still want to highlight the flower beds the same way you currently are? These are the kinds of questions to consider while you're developing your lighting plan. You asked about the number of puck lights I recommend under the covered entrance. My first impulse would be to tell you to center a soffit light to each side of the soffit area flanking that pillar. I think it might look cool to have a soffit light illuminating that tree from above. But if you do that, will you still want to illuminate that pillar? Or maybe you don't want to put any soffit lights there at all. If there's an overhead in front of your door or sconce there already, you could rely on that (something with fairly low lumens perhaps) and plan for "fill" lighting from nearby spotlights or path lights to ensure that that area of your house isn't in the dark. By now, maybe you can see where I'm going with this. Basically, I want you to think less in terms of fixture numbers or types and more in terms of the lumens or brightness level you want focused on any one area or on your whole property, for that matter. You've got path/area lights illuminating small groups of plants inside of the bed. If you want to focus on illuminating your walk way, you could install some path light fixtures with wider coverage and simultaneously illuminate part of your path way and part of a planting bed. Similarly, puck lights or soffit lights are available in different color temperatures as well as different brightness levels. Since there's a little more work involved than installing fixtures at ground level, you might want to experiment by purchasing one at the brightness level you think you'll want and then testing it out in some different areas where you're considering adding soffit lights. That way, you can make more informed decisions when you make a final purchase. Having said all that, for spotlight fixtures, if it's within your budget, I highly recommend the full size Top Dog Scotty. Why? Mainly because its customizability can't be beat. The fixture accepts a fairly wide range of lamp types as well as lenses and filter types. Basically whatever most of the other fixtures can do can be accomplished by configuring the Top Dog Scotty with the appropriate accessories. For path lights, again, that will depend on the amount of coverage you want. You can buy fixture model with a whopping 16 feet diameter beam spread down to fixtures that target a smaller area like those in your flower bed. There's no reason that they all have to be the same size. Purchase the fixture that accomplishes what you want to do for any given area of your yard or walkway. So hopefully I haven't totally overwhelmed you but what's important to remember is that you've got a wide variety of choices. I highly recommend that you explore the product section of VOLT's site to familiarize yourself with your options. Btw, it's there that you'll find the lenses and filter types that will enable you to refine the default light output of your fixtures and create any number of lighting effects. Really HTH.
Thank you so much! This is very helpful. This is my first time tackling a project like this, so I’d love a sanity check on my design. Here’s what I’m looking for feedback on: - Wiring and Placement: Do you see any issue with my wiring diagram? Im planning to run one wire to the roof to tackle the areas above the garage and front window and fireplace, and another wire along the ground for the rest of the lights. Suggestions for placement to get the best coverage and aesthetic effect? - Light Fixtures: Thoughts on the Top Dog Scotty spotlights and the 5W MR16 bulbs? Is this a good choice for ALL of the spotlights? or are there better options I should consider for differnt areas? Im going to get 7 of the surface mounts and a gutter mount as well. - Garage and Front Windows Lighting: For the area above the garage and front windows, I’m debating between two options: Installing two spotlights in the bottom corners aiming up. Adding a downlight in the peak instead. Which do you think would look better or provide more balanced lighting? what is the best fixture if i go with the single downlight in the peak? - I’d greatly appreciate any advice you can share. My goal is to create a cohesive, well-lit look without overdoing it. Thanks in advance for your feedback! Looking forward to hearing your suggestions!
