Add Nighttime Function to Your Home with Outdoor Lighting

Would you like to increase the amount of time that you can spend outdoors at your home? Having the right scheme of outdoor lighting to allow for nighttime use of an area is the most important factor for allowing you to do this. The types of lighting you should consider using to enhance your outdoor area include: porch or patio lighting, garden or landscape lighting, and path lighting.

Porch or patio lighting should be carefully planned, since these places are the most common functional areas used at night. This is also a great type of lighting to use around a swimming pool to allow for use at night. Lighting for these areas is very important for safety and visibility. The lighting needs to be reliably bright, making wall mounts and flood lights common choices. Lighting for a porch or patio does not have to be mounted on the exterior of the house. Rope lights and deck post lights are two examples of lights that attach to your porch, not your house.

Garden or landscape lighting is used to highlight special features and focal points of your landscaping. Many lights of the same lighting type can be used in an area, and they can be placed at strategic locations in your garden so that you can enjoy its beauty at night as well as during the day. Special garden lights such as spotlights can be used to highlight focal points of your landscape, such as a fountain or water garden.

Path lighting is great for clearing a walkway in your outdoor living area. It also looks great when it's used to define the perimeter of an area, such as a freestanding flower garden.
Before purchasing outdoor lighting fixtures, be sure that they are designed for outdoor use. Outdoor lighting fixtures are made to be durable and resistant to weather conditions, so they are made of strong materials including shatterproof glass, plastic, aluminum, and stainless steel.