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Find the Right Style of Outdoor Lighting Fixture to Highlight Your Home

Outdoor home lighting schemes should be thoroughly thought out. You need to think about your home's appearance, your home's safety, and your home's impact on the neighborhood. If you reside in the city you probably have streetlights near your home, so external lights are less of a necessity and more a personal desire. Yet, some suburbs and most rural towns do not provide streetlights! The rural and suburban homeowner must, out of necessity, provide his/her own outdoor home and landscape lights. Whatever type of city or town you live in the criteria for deciding your lighting design are identical.

First of all, think like a designer as you consider your outdoor lighting choices. If your home is indeed your castle then why not light it up? There are vast varieties of outdoor home lighting fixtures on the market. But deciding upon the proper light fixtures can be hard. Which lighting style will compliment your home? How much light is the right amount, and where exactly should you put the lights?

You should begin your lighting design at your main entrance since this is more often than not the focal point of your house's architecture. Choose one style of major fixture (or pair of fixtures) for your front entranceway, either to install in the entryway ceiling or on the wall near the door. Styles of outdoor lights range from classic to contemporary to industrial, from aluminum to brass to copper, and from lantern to chandelier to recessed. The choices are endless.

You may not be certain what style of outdoor lighting will look good with the architecture of your house, so you could purchase a few different fixtures, bring them home and take a look, and return the ones you don't like. Try to imagine or visualize how the style of lighting will complement your house. Next, try to determine if that same style of light fixture will match well with other landscape features, such as walkways, your driveway, or even a specimen tree. Try to keep it subtle, soft and keep it simple. Too much light outdoors at night can make it harder to see, not easier because our eyes are naturally adjusted to night vision and sudden super bright lights can blind us. We don't want to turn night into day!

Security is something that no one should ignore. You need to light the pathways that lead to your home. There are some lights that you might want to connect to a timer so they are not on all night, and other lights you may want to have on all night.

Now say you need to take out the trash at night or to look for your wayward pet through the back or side door. The outdoor lighting in the back and sides of your house might be on a motion sensor to work just when you need them. There are differing views about whether bright lights at night deter crime and vandalism, or whether they actually help the perpetrators to see better what they are doing. One can't help but assume that the surprise of the motion sensor light must scare away some burglars.

How your outdoor home lights affect your neighbors is another important consideration to make when creating your lighting design. Some types of light fixtures are designed to flood an area with light (not recommended) while others spotlight or direct the light to a specific area (recommended). Keep in mind that too much light is as bad as not enough light. Too much light makes the contrast between light and dark too harsh. You are blinded as you move out of the bright light into the darkness, and as you approach an over lighted area in the dark suddenly you can't see where you are stepping.

Another reason to avoid installing glaring lights is that they cause light pollution. This excess of light is sometimes known as Light Trespassing when it spills over into your neighbor's property, shining in their bedroom windows for example. Many cities and towns have laws regarding outdoor lighting. Why create friction with you neighbors over light pollution when it is just as easy to keep your lighting on your own property? And that is easy if you choose the correct fixtures.

Too much light on the planet Earth at night is causing problems to the environment, animals, plants and even humans! Light pollution is becoming such a problem that a new movement called the Dark Sky Movement has developed to combat the problem. The fact that most people can relate to is this: In just a few more years, maybe a decade, nowhere in the United States will it be dark enough for you to see the Milky Way Galaxy with your naked eye. Depending on your age, this may have been an ability that you took for granted when you were young.

About the Author

Wendy is a trained landscape designer. She has been writing articles for several years. Come by her latest website http://www.EasyUpCanopy.org/ that helps you find the best Easy Up Canopy as well as information about instant, pop up shelters and tents.

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