While most of us spend time thinking and carefully planning the lighting of our homes, we often forget about the exteriors. The outside of your home gives people their first impression of your space and lighting plays an important role in making your home look good. While most homes have some type of exterior home lighting in place, they are most likely chosen for functionality rather than decoration. Well, what if we told you that you could have both?
There’s so much to exterior home lighting than just fitting a bulb in your patio and we are to help break it down for you! Let’s discuss how to go about lighting the exteriors of your home.
Also read: How to Effortlessly Light a Building’s Façade?
What to Consider Before Lighting Your Home?
Before installing outdoor lights, ask yourself the following questions to understand the best lighting strategies for your home.
1. Which areas do you want to emphasize?
Start by assessing our outdoor space and find the features that you would wish to highlight with lighting. This could be an outdoor patio, a garden area, a pool, a parking garage or even a staircase.
2. What design style do you want to follow?
Lighting fixtures are now available in a plethora of styles and sizes, allowing you to match your lighting with the style of your home. If you own a minimalist modern home, you may consider discreet lighting fixtures that highlight your home without seeming out of place. A historical mansion, on the other hand, may look better with more ornate fixtures and traditional lamps that work as decorative pieces as well. By matching the style of your home, you can ensure a cohesive outdoor space.
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can start designing and decorating the outside of your home with lighting.
Top 5 Exterior Home Lighting Ideas
Here are a couple of exterior home lighting ideas to inspire your upcoming project:
1. Illuminate your staircase
To the untrained eye, a staircase that leads to your home entrance appears like a functional way to get there but it can be so much more. A stairway is actually an architectural feature that you can leverage by illuminating it wisely. Adding lights to your stairway also allows more visibility and makes it easier to take the stairs at night. To illuminate the path, add LED strip lights under the lip of the stairs or install recessed or ground lights along the path.
2. Invest in motion sensor outdoor lights
One of the best exterior home lighting ideas is making your home smarter with motion sensor outdoor lights. You can install these at the entrance of your home or even add them to your parking garage to quickly light these areas up automatically as you enter. This way, you wouldn’t have to think about turning on a switch.
3. Get spotlights for the garden
Maintaining a garden, regardless of its size is hard work and if you’ve been able to manage a beautiful garden, then why not show it off? A great way to add depth to your exterior home lighting is to light up your home with spotlights for the garden. Spotlights or ground lights give your plants a focal glow while also letting you see the beauty of your plants even at night.
4. Decorate your path with outdoor lamps for house
Whether you have a large gate or a short fence, adding outdoor lamps for house can elevate the space and the architectural features of your home. You can invest in tall, standing outdoor lamps for house that match the exterior of your home while illuminating the path towards the entrance of your home.
5. Create a visual balance with wall mounted outdoor lighting
Outdoor home lights don’t just have to be at the ground level. Did you know you can lengthen your home and make it appear larger with wall mounted outdoor lighting fixtures? By strategically placing them along the length of the home and in pairs, you can create harmony and enhance the appearance of your home.
While these tips cover some of the best exterior home lighting tips, this list is by no means exhaustive. There’s still so much potential for what the outside of your home can look like and if you want any help or advice on this topic, you can get on a virtual meeting with Jaquar’s experts. You can also check out Jaquar’s range of premium lighting fixtures to help with your inspiration. Now that you know how to go about lighting the outside of your home, which of the tips are you going to use?