Homeowners spend a great deal of time and money taking care of their home’s interior, sprucing it up, renovating, and landscaping their garden. But one thing that is just as important as your home’s exterior is the outdoor lighting.
For some homeowners, keeping their exterior well-lit can sometimes be an afterthought. It’s expensive and may not be considered a necessity for some, while others just can’t be bothered by having to replace so many lights every so often. On the other hand, outdoor lighting has many promising benefits to the home, many of which go beyond aesthetics. When your home is your sanctuary, you should be able to enjoy both the indoor and outdoor space instead of rushing back in as soon as the sun sets.
With a new-found love and emphasis, homeowners have on outdoor spaces, putting so much weight and thought into how you light up your outdoors should now be a priority more than anything else. That said, check out some ways outdoor lights benefit your home and bonus points on choosing the right outdoor lights.
How Do Outdoor Lights Benefit Your Home
Installing outdoor lights is essential. They’ve been around for so long; however, not all homeowners fully understand why investing in good professional landscape lighting in Seattle is a must. The reasons enumerated below should be more than enough to convince you.
1. It Elevates Your Exterior’s Aesthetic
One of the most compelling benefits of outdoor lighting is that it can elevate your home’s exterior. You can have a beautiful, well-landscaped lawn, but those would only be enjoyed during the day without outdoor lights. Without lights to feature it at night, there’s no way to appreciate how beautiful your home’s garden is. Once you have enough outdoor lights, your home’s aesthetic value gets a notch higher.
To achieve this, you can consider asking the question as to what features of your home’s exterior you’d like to be highlighted the most. Do you have a beautiful water feature in your yard? Add a spotlight to it. Is there a big tree on which you can hang string or fairy lights? Go ahead. Is your garden well-landscaped? Show it off with the wall and path lights.
There are so many ways to get this right. To hit it off in the right direction, calling in the expertise of your landscaper to choose what outdoor lights to put up is a good move. Here’s a video to help you understand better:
2. It’s A Practical Feature
Outdoor lights are a practical feature to have. With the proper lighting, you can maximize and enjoy your outdoor space. For example, if you want an intimate dinner with family or friends, you can use hanging outdoor lights to set the mood. Otherwise, if it’s not well-lit, you won’t be able to use that space. It may be expensive to install those lights, but they’re worth the expense, given their practicality.
With a well-lit outdoor area, now your yard can be a useful extension of your home. Just think about all the fun activities you can now have and enjoy, whether for an evening barbeque, watching the kids play, enjoying a Saturday night with friends, or playing sports like badminton and volleyball, if the space permits. The possibilities are endless now, with a lot of light in your backyard.
3. It Increases Your Home’s Value
If you’re considering selling your home in the near future, it’s prudent to think about small changes here and there that could potentially increase your home’s value so you can demand a higher selling price. When it comes to selling property, the general rule to remember always is the more you can make from it, the better.
Many home projects could increase your home’s value, including installing outdoor lights. Some may find a poorly-lit home unattractive. Moreover, appreciating a home’s façade and best features at night is hard when the lighting isn’t great.
Apart from that, there’s the security aspect, too. Lights can serve as a deterrent for thieves, so it’s not surprising how potential home buyers favor a well-lit home. This means they won’t have to be bothered about installing a lighting system alone when they move in.
4. It Provides Safety And Security
Homeowners will agree on one thing unanimously: there’s nothing more important in a home than feeling safe and secure. Fortunately, you can achieve this by installing outdoor lighting in several ways.
You and your guests will feel safer walking around your property when the path is well-lit. There’s less concern about tripping, slipping, or falling, especially if your garden happens to have an uneven surface. It’s easier to see your steps when the whole area is illuminated.
Regarding security, as mentioned previously, thieves hate brightly-lit homes. It’s harder for them to break in when the chances of getting caught are significantly higher. For instance, motion detectors or motion sensor lights can potentially stop robbers. They’re unaware that such light is there, as it only lights up when the light detects the nearby motion.
5. It Creates A Warm Welcome Into Your Home
Having a bright and beautiful garden can make your home feel welcoming. Guests won’t feel safe and at home when walking into a dark and eerie-like property. When you’re entertaining, you’ll want to create a good first impression before they walk inside your door. After all, your home’s exterior is the first thing guests see before they even experience the rest of your property.
Because your garden is now well-lit, you can even start hosting gatherings outdoors. You can keep the inside of your home clean and guest-free when now, parties can be in your garden. The level of fun and hospitality your guests receive doesn’t have to be any less just because they’re not inside your home.
Along this line, it becomes easier for you to entertain guests when you can keep the crowd and mess outdoors. There’s no running in and out of your home wondering if there are spills here and there or if private bedrooms are kept closed. Visitors get to experience that cozy al fresco dining experience in your garden.
How To Choose The Right Outdoor Lights
After reading the points above, you should feel more convinced about installing outdoor lights in your home. As a supplement to the points above, here are additional points to help you choose the right outdoor lights, with the aim that you, too, can find the right ones for your home.
1. Think About The Proper Scale
For your lighting to amplify your home’s best features and have an appealing look, you must consider the size of your home’s outdoor space. This can help you determine the right size of outdoor lighting fixtures to use, along with the wattage requirement of each bulb.
Here’s a quick run-through of pointers to guide you through the proper scale:
• Watts. Exposed bulbs need to have a minimum of 60 watts. If the bulb is protected by a glass covering, you can make it go up to 75-100 watts.
• Wall sconces. These wall lights should be at least 25% of your door’s height.
Take note of these and use them as your guide when you purchase your electrical needs.
2. Use LED Bulbs
One of the main concerns of homeowners about having too many lights in their homes is that this translates to an increase in electricity consumption. Many households have gone the route of installing solar and wind energy when possible. If this is out of the picture, you must be more strategic with your choices, in this case, with what bulb to use.
Generally, there are various types of bulbs, including halogen, incandescent, and light-emitting diodes (LED). It’s best to use LED lighting as they’re proven and tested to be more energy-efficient than other types. This doesn’t just translate to a lower electricity bill; it also means you won’t have to replace the bulbs as frequently as you may have with other types of bulbs.
3. Don’t Overdo The Lighting
While this read is here to convince you why installing outdoor lights is important, it does not imply that you must go all out. Even a little goes a long way when it comes to outdoor lighting. Beyond lighting up your home, it’s also about creating that warm, cozy, and beautiful space.
This is precisely why it’s also a good idea to seek advice from an exterior or landscape designer. They can give you insights on how and where to place lights, so you don’t cross the line between what’s necessary and what’s too much. Hence, there are no overdoing things.
The Bottomline
Simply put, outdoor lights allow you to enjoy your home’s yard or lawn, even at night. You don’t have to feel cooped up inside your home because you don’t feel comfortable and have space in your yard. Outdoor living should be a core part of every household. Perhaps you should rethink your home’s exterior lighting for yourself as the homeowner or for entertaining. There are so many to choose from, so style-wise and functionality-wise, there’s an outdoor lighting option for every homeowner. Those mentioned above should be reasonable to convince you of how important lighting is.
