Hello all. I purchased some VOLT lighting last year for the first floor columns on my house. With the carriage lights and front porch lighting, I love how the house first floor is lit up. During the holiday season, the C9 bulbs of the Christmas lights softly light up the second floor so nicely, that I'd love to have this lit year-round. I'm considering the wide splash R7S for the yellow and gentle splash for the red, but cannot tell if these would be sufficient or not? Any thoughts or recommendations? Note: Christmas lighting photo taken before column uplights added. Added to show how the second floor and upper gable are lit. Thanks everyone.
You have a lovely home, Kenny. First, I have to say, I don't often see columns illuminated as attractively as yours It looks like the beam spread is perfect and you've done a great job of aiming your fixtures so that shadows from the stone base platform don't creep onto the columns. Having said that, I think you might want to consider dialing back the brightness for those fixtures--especially if you're planning to go with softer lighting on the upper level of your house. Otherwise, you'll have significantly different brightness levels on different areas of the house. If light trespass isn't a concern for you, the Wide Splash (which dims to around 80 lumens) I think should approximate the light level from your holiday lights. I might be wrong but the lamp with the lowest brightness available for the Gentle Splash (150 lumens) might be quite a brighter than what you have in mind. In any event, I drew on your photo to suggest an alternative plan that highlights rather than floods the upper facade entirely. I think 2W mini spots would work best for the wall sections highlighted and the gables. Consider a puck light or 3" linear hardscape light for the tiny gable above the front porch. Finally, to give your plan a bit more dimension, consider illuminating the shrubs at the foundation garden in front of your porch. That would be an ideal location for a fixture like the Wide Splash flood. Of course, the best approach is the one that you like the most so feel free to take my suggestions with a grain of salt.
Thanks Meso... I had also considered a more accented approach similar to what you've shown here. I also considered using the wide splash on the sides and leave accents on the corner of the bump-out over the front door, like you have. I've looked for examples of wall splash on second floor homes and found little to compare with. A few comments: I honestly hadn't considered a spot light for the highest gable. I think that addition might look nice either way. As for the mini-gable above the front door, I was wondering if it would produce a undesirable shadow on the window above if I used a wall splash lighting. As for brightness, if I lowered the brightness on the columns from the 5w to the 2w or 3w MR16s, they would be significantly dimmer than the porch lighting. Would that detract in anyway? Obviously, I'm somewhat new to this outdoor lighting and appreciate all the wisdom you can share. Thank you for your suggestions
Thanks for being open to some constructive criticism. Right now you have a lot of light concentrated in that one area where your porch is. IMO, because your house is a light color, the amount of lumens used there is probably more than enough to attractively illuminate the entire facade of the house, if that makes sense. 2W or 3W (max) for the columns and 15W incandescent (or their closest LED equivalent) for the ceiling and wall sconces. Same 2W or 3W lamps in fixtures on the upper levels. And to compensate for some of the light we took away when we dimmed your porch lights, a 2W or 3W flood for the foundation shrubbery and one or two 2W or 3W path lights. Again, all to be taken with a grain of salt. You know what it's like to live there so that's going to always be the starting point for your decision making. FYI, what I had in mind for that small gable is a puck light or hardscape light tucked inside that triangle. One other thing...Remember that you can always add dimmers to those outdoor lights for occasions when you want/need to dial up the brightness level in front of your house or garage.
I know that there isn't a specific amount of lumens recommended.... but that said, how much do you recommend? haha My house is 40ft wide with a ~22ft wide porch area. There are two hanging lights and two carriage lights by the garage. Each contains 3 bulbs, which I have 40w equivalent incandescent bulbs that output 300w per bulb, or 900 per fixture. The uplights are top dog spots from Volt with 5w 15degree MR16s producing 400 lumen each. This puts the lower floor at a total of 5200 lumens! What should I target? 2500? I assume near uniform distribution would be preferred between porch, carriage lights and uplights? I also feel there are some lighting artifacts produced by the camera so I took some more photos tonight. I will attach shortly if any of them are more representative of the house when simply looking at it. EDIT: Photos added. One is of the entire house after dark trying to get color balance set correctly to show the 2700k coloring. The house is a tan/beige. The second photo is of one column upclose to try and demonstrte how it looks. Thanks again for helping me out.
I would go with 3W for the columns and first floor wall sections and 5W on the upper level (to compensate for the distance from the gutters). For the house (line voltage) lights, I'd shoot for roughly the same number of lumens as the bulbs in your landscape lighting fixtures. I'd go with the same color temp throughout and I'd use frosted bulbs for the house fixtures.
I replied earlier before I noticed you'd posted the new pics. So essentially the facade of your house there is fully illuminated. What I really think you should do before committing to all of one light brightness or color temp is see what 2w or 3w look like. My concern is that the 3W could be at a brightness level where you're still basically illuminating the entire facade of your house rather than highlighting sections of it. It's conceivable that 2W could very well do the trick (in which case, 3W would probably work fine for the gutter mounted spotlights). I also think it's a really good idea to take a look at how a 3000K looks on your house. I've had people with yellow or cream colored houses say that the 2700K makes their walls look drab and dingy and that the 3000Ks make their walls look cleaner. But we're all different. If you're satisfied with the 2700K, you should definitely go for it.
Thanks again. You mention frosted bulbs. I was looking at the frosted inserts for the top dog spotlights i currently have also. Not fully sold. I will probably grab a few to trial, in addition to the different wattage bulbs. I might have to pick up a few items from volt just to try before making the larger purchase and running all the wiring. Thanks again.
