I was hoping for some suggestions for lighting the front of our home. The front yard area is pretty narrow because our wedge-shaped lot is at the end of a cul-de-sac. My thoughts are as follows: The stone facade on either side of the window behind the large tree. The Saguaro cactus The large tree The tall narrow cacti to the right of the large tree Maybe a downlight from the large tree shining down on the funky looking cactus in the foreground between the reddish bush and the large tree. I've gone back and forth on whether to put path lights along the driveway, but have been most recently thinking they might take away from the focal point of the landscaping in the front i'd like to highlight. I'm just getting started, so any suggestions about appropriate fixtures, etc is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance! Bryan
Love your house and your design sense, Bryan K. Your plan sounds fine and I would just offer a handful of mostly general recommendations. With a modestly sized front yard like yours (I have a smallish front yard as well), it can be easy to over light your landscape, imo. You have a lot of light colored surfaces that will reflect a fair amount of light. It's for that reason and because you have a shallow yard, I would go with fairly light lumen lamps (a couple hundred or so at the most) in your fixtures. Good idea to graze the stone facade and show off that rough texture. I would also gently light the boulders at the base of the large tree. Frankly, lighting the facade, those boulders, the large tree and the saguaro and letting the reflected light tell the rest of the story (so to speak) might be all you need. I often encourage people to do the unexpected and just have fun. There's some playfulness to your landscaping and I think you should feel freer to step outside of the box than I might recommend to someone who had really formal landscaping. For instance, you could flank the saguaro with a couple of spotlights that would show off more of its structure than if you lit it from the front the way we typically illuminate columns. With the latter approach, the light will fall off as you get to the top of the cactus. You could also illuminate the saguaro from one side. Another way to make the saguaro really stand out would be to use a different light color temperature than you have on the others. I'm not a huge fan of intense colors for residential landscaping but the difference between a 2700K warm white and the 3000K warm white can be striking when a subject is isolated among plants and trees illuminated by a different color temperature. Similarly, with the cactus on the ground, you could obviously light it with a path/area light. But the first thing I wondered was how spooky and cool it would look illuminated from behind with a spotlight or well light. Another thing I encourage people to do is really take advantage of the strengths of their properties. With a xeriscaped yard, you have fewer of the fixture placement issues you might have with a lawn. In your case, you can easily use both lower profile directional fixtures and regular spotlights and well lights with less concern about the fixtures getting damaged or becoming trip hazards. So you could easily illuminate those red leaved shrubs along the left side of your yard in a variety of ways. Since I can't really see the entrance to your house, I'm hesitant to make any additional recommendations. But I will say that if I had a big blank "projection screen" like your carport to work with, I would definitely try one of the decorative shadow producing bollard type path lights near one or more edges of your yard or carport. Finally, if your wall sconces will be part of your lighting plan, I'd recommend using the same color temperature you use in the lamps for the fixtures you use on your facade. Hope this helps get you started.
Thanks for the tips Mesodude. I'll definitely try a few of your suggestions, particularly for the 3000k warm white for the saguaro. I've attached a photo of a different angle of the front of our home to show the entrance. With the sconces there, i'm a bit stumped as to anything around the entrances or garage. My other consideration would be to place 2 or 3 tall and narrow plants on the right side of the driveway and light the plants to give an effect of having path lights and give some balance to the front of our home. Bryan
Glad to help and thanks for showing a different vantage point to your house. From the other picture, I had the impression that that cactus on the edge of your carport was right next to your front door. Now that I know it's in front of that nice flat section of wall, I can recommend that you front light it so that its shadow is projected against that section. I happen to love your wall sconces and if you do nothing else with that side of the house, I think it'd be a good idea to put some lower wattage bulbs that are the same color temp as your other landscape lighting on the house. Perhaps you could put them on a timer so that they come on when your landscape lights come on. if you rely on them for security, that might not be a good idea. But if not, I think they'd show off the house well without overpowering the rest of your lighting. If you want to get really ambitious and work with a contractor who can help you safely mount and hide your lights where I've indicated, it might be cool to highlight those parts of the house as well. For the stone turret section above your doorway, you'd want to use something like a puck light or other hardscape light. For the wall sections above the garage, some mini spotlights would work well. You just want to be careful not to aim lights into your windows so that they interfere with anyone's sleep or comfort. And now you're thinking like a designer. I like your path light idea a lot. Sounds like you are off to a great start.
