Outdoor uplights for your home not only enhance your home’s security, but also make your home much more attractive. You can highlight the best features of your house and landscaping, increase curb appeal, and give your home a high-end aesthetic appeal. Here are the important factors to consider for excellent, professional home uplighting.
Use Enough Fixtures for Home Uplighting
Don’t stress about the quantity of fixtures you’re using when you install outdoor uplights for your home. Many times, when we present a design for home up lighting, people respond with one question: “Why do we need so many fixtures?”
They feel that the number of fixtures we recommend is more than needed and worry that the end result will be too bright. But what we know—and we help our customers to see with a full demonstration—is that it’s not about the number of fixtures. It’s about creating a uniform look across your home with the home uplighting you install. From left to right, you want uniformity so that your home is not only well-lit, but also looks more attractive all the way across.
Ask the Right Questions About Each Light
To achieve the look you want from home uplighting, think about what each fixture does:
- What’s the function of the fixture?
- Where is it pointed?
- What area does it cover?
- Is it the correct fixture for this area?
Using too few fixtures, the wrong fixtures, or fixtures set at the wrong distance or angle will result in dark spots and shadows. You won’t have the uniform, attractive appearance that you want to achieve with professional outdoor uplights for your home.
Consider also what you want to highlight with each fixture. If your home has features that are outdated, use outdoor uplights to highlight that beautiful maple tree or landscaping instead. Outdoor uplights can make your home more attractive by bringing attention to the best features, whether those features are part of the landscaping or the house itself.
Use the Correct Type of Light Fixture
Using the right fixtures for the right part of your home uplighting is important. For example, to illuminate a long, low wall, you need to use a wash light rather than an uplight. The wrong type of fixture will not be able to do the job it’s supposed to do.
These fixtures are often used in uplighting:
- Bullet lights are spotlights with a narrow beam and can be surface mounted or pole mounted.
- Wash lights provide a lower diffused ‘wash’ of light for walls and other flat surfaces.
- Well lights are installed in the ground or landscaping to provide a soft, targeted uplight.
- Flood lights are spotlights with a wider beam than bullet lights.
When considering the type of fixture to use in each area, look at the area it will cover and the spread of the light. If you have other outdoor lights in place, such as path lighting, landscape lighting, or flood lights on your porch, think about how these lights will work as part of your home uplighting.
Consider Intensity and Position on Outdoor Uplights
With the right fixtures in the right places, you can ensure a consistent look across the entire front of your home.
To keep the uplighting at the desired brightness level, we adjust the intensity. This keeps the uplighting consistent across windows, chimneys, bushes, trees, walls, and other features or obstacles. To make home uplighting less or more bright, it’s not about adding or removing fixtures but about setting the fixtures to the correct intensity.
Think about where each fixture is positioned, as well. You don’t want to shine lights into your home but on your home. Fixtures go on each side of a window, not pointed into the window. Play with the angle of each light to ensure it illuminates your home rather than casting shadows.
Focus on a Uniform Look for Home Uplighting
Uniformity is the key to a high-end, attractive look with home up lighting.
If you use too few fixtures, the end results won’t be adequate. It will look like people holding flashlights at your home. If you put the outdoor uplights for your home in the wrong places, or at the wrong angle, you’ll create shadows or dark spots, highlight the wrong features, or end up shining lights inside your home instead of on your home’s exterior.
At Outdoor Lighting Solutions, we are aesthetically driven to enhance your home. When we install home uplighting, we focus on creating a lighting system that makes your home look its absolute best. Let us demo what we mean for you and you’ll understand. We’ll help you design the perfect uplighting system, then schedule a time to come out in the evening and show you what professional outdoor uplights can do for your home.