7 Awesome Outdoor Lighting Ideas for Your Backyard

Outdoor spaces can be an excellent place to spend warm summer nights or bundled up during the winter. Home exterior lighting can provide a new perspective on the beauty of your landscape, and create a new, inviting space for you your guests to enjoy. This is why we’ve done our research to provide you with various ways to brighten up your outdoor space. From luxury lighting design options to affordable solar and battery-powered lights – there are many ways to achieve that Pinterest mood board dream.

How to choose home lighting

When searching for a home, interior and exterior lighting are a couple of things that may not get as much attention. However, there are various rules that a lighting designer will follow when customizing a lighting plan for a home or landscape. Three essential design considerations for outdoor fixture lighting are:

Aesthetic

Aesthetic is the overall feel you want to create to match your home. For example, you can focus on illuminating the dark room’s background, intermediate areas, and borders to make your lighting design cohesive. Avoid leaving large areas unlit around your home, as your eyes naturally overlook the space. That interrupts the experience.

Depth

The front of your home should provide a three-dimensional environment with depth. Placing your lighting elements in positions that make most of your space can help you get to grips with depth. For example, high, medium, or low wattage lights can help make most of the area by lighting areas with different spreads.

Focal Points

Finally, when determining the front-of-house lighting options, consider the main points of your home. Decide which characteristics you want to draw attention to. The beauty points of your home might be unique features or functional areas of your home. For example, you might want to highlight a dynamic water feature. Unique individual elements of your home include seating areas on the patio or the entrance to your house.

What type of lighting is best for the outdoors?

The best lighting for outdoors is outdoor led lighting. LED’s come in various types of fixtures. A popular brand for these lights is Hampton Bay solar lights, sold by Home Depot. These lights provide high quality and can last through the warm and cold seasons. Battery-powered outdoor lights are an excellent affordable option but provide some challenges as battery compartments can become corrupted or display water damage.

Outdoor lighting can be as minimal or creative as you’d like. If you’re looking for fun outdoor lighting ideas, here are a few you can try!

Outdoor Lanterns

Outdoor lantern lights are a fun idea to give the impression of a candle-lit glow of the firefly in a jar look.

Fairy Lights

Fairy lights can create the perfect summer dinner party area or outdoor movie space for summer with a few strands of string lights.

Garden Lighting

Try adding stake lights in your garden to provide depth in your yard. You can also try to place flush lights beneath a tree or shrub that can cast a soft upward light.

Uplighting and moonlighting

Up-lighting and moonlighting are two methods of lighting you can use to highlight tall landscape features around the perimeter of your home.

Fence lighting

Fence Lighting is another option for hanging outdoor lantern lights or wiring post lights.

Garden lights

Garden Lights can be a good choice because foliage and flowers can hide most fixtures or wiring.

String Lights

String lights are a classic way to brighten up an outdoor space.

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What color lighting is recommended for outdoor lights?

Did you know there are many different light temperatures to pick from that are best for your specific space or mental health? Warm white at 2700K is the suggested color for outdoor lights. This color provides a slightly orange tint to provide the look of halogen-type landscape lighting. This warmth provides just enough illumination to add comfort outdoors but doesn’t draw too much attention to by-passers.

Are LED lights a good option for outdoor lighting?

Outdoor-led lighting is the best type of lighting, outdoors and in. LED lights are more common today because of their energy efficiency. LED stands for light emitting diodes, which are brighter and more sustainable than a fluorescent light bulb. In addition, LED lights are known to be low maintenance and can last long without impacting the electric bill.

How do you light an outside area?

Outdoor lighting fixtures can include backyard lights, yard lights, and landscaping lights that can be placed around the border of the garden or border the perimeter of the home.

Discreet up-lights can be used to enhance plants and trees, adding drama as their shapes will take on architectural qualities when thrown into relief. The same goes for garden art or sculpture pieces, which can become attractive focal points if you use the proper lighting to draw attention to them.

You can also create a relaxed atmosphere if you use recessed lighting to give your backyard ideas an indoor feel that’s perfect for defining a welcoming space when you’re entertaining friends. But, of course, there’s a practical element to good lighting, too, as you can use it to light the way and frame entrances.

How can I decorate my backyard with lights?

Innovative backyard lighting ideas can quickly and easily maximize your backyard space’s potential for enjoying. Using proper lighting can also highlight focal points and improve the overall aesthetic of your outdoor space.

How can I improve the lighting in my backyard?

Up-lighting and moonlighting are two methods of lighting you can use to improve the lighting in your backyard. Up-lighting involves installing wall fixtures, directional lights facing upwards beneath trees, or unique home design elements. Moonlighting gives the effect of the moon spilling through trees onto a property. For example, you can create spread light and shadows on your lawn by placing a light atop a tree facing down to the desired area. Moonlighting provides a soft light over large parts of your property without having too much direct sunlight and minimizes dark patches.

Where should landscaping lights be placed?

Landscape lighting always depends on your space. For smaller yards and landscapes, it is recommended to use smaller lights within the garden to create milder lighting.

How to avoid dark areas by adding light to blind spots:

There are many outdoor lighting ideas for the front of the house. Install well lights, spotlights, or up-lights around flowers, shrubs, and trees. This feature can highlight the beauty of your landscape at night and give a sense of depth to your landscape. Look for weather-sealed lights to ensure long-lasting beauty.

What would you use to illuminate a large area?

Homes can benefit from combining floodlights and spotlights to add dimension and height to accentuate the landscape. Floodlights cast a wide beam that illuminates a large area, such as a driveway. Spotlights can light up ample space in your yard with direct bright light or hidden within the garden to scatter light. An example is moonlighting, a method of dispersing light from atop a tree through its branches.

What are affordable ways to light up my landscape?

Before purchasing backyard lighting, there are a few things you need to consider. First, the space you have can impact how bright you want your lights to be, the direction, and your power source. Below are some energy-efficient options:

String Lights

These lights are available at nearly every home and garden store; these are a great way to customize your lighting to your backyard, as string lights can come in lengths as short as four feet and longer lengths of more than fifty feet. In addition, some strings will need access to an electrical socket, and a little searching can land you a pack of battery-powered or even solar lights!

Solar-Powered Stakes

Solar-powered lights are a popular backyard lighting option that typically shows lighting pathways or lawns. These solar lights are a great way to brighten up areas in your walkway, front yard, or driveway that are not within reach of an electrical outlet.

Fairy Lights

By scattering some lanterns on the table, you can achieve the outdoor candle-lit glow. If finding places to hang lights is an issue, hold up your string lights with a pretty potted plant and camouflage the wooden pole with decorative lace, faux plants, or paint. Find a planter with a heavy base to keep things stable. Add flowers and greenery to give some visual eye candy to this excellent DIY setup. Simple string lights with illuminated jars can also create a beautiful lighting display.

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How can I light my backyard without electricity?

Outdoor lighting that requires electricity is not for everyone. A good option for outdoor lights in the backyard is battery-powered outdoor lights or solar lights. Battery-powered lights come in various shapes and sizes. Solar lights are a great option because they are low maintenance and don’t require any upkeep. The downside to solar light is that it may not be as bright as LED lighting or another type that plugs into an outlet.

Battery-powered outdoor lights are a great option because you can get many different types. Unlike a solar light, when the battery runs out, you can replace it. A downfall to battery-powered lights is that the battery compartment may become loose or succumb to weather damage. Outdoor battery-powered or solar-powered lights are both excellent alternatives to fixtures that need electricity, but you should always be attentive to their quality.

Will outdoor lighting increase the value of my home?

Lighting can be an expensive journey for a home buyer in two ways. If a home holds too many light features, this can increase an electric bill or leave more fixtures that need to be maintained. In another case of a house not having enough light, a home buyer would need to install more lights which can be costly depending on the lighting choices. Natural Light is a desirable feature for many homes. Lights inside the house can benefit from natural light but also an open opportunity for outdoor lighting to brighten two areas.

Patio lighting, porch light fixtures, yard lights, and landscape lights can range from as low as $20 to an upwards value of over $200. Having sustainable, efficient lighting can increase the value of a home in many ways.

Summary

Choosing proper exterior lighting for your home can help to improve your backyard functionality, aesthetic and extend your living or entertainment area. You can find many sustainable lighting fixtures available that can also add to the value of your home. There are many ways to add lighting to your outdoor space, and not all of them require electricity. In summary, there are handfuls of outdoor lighting options available. That is why you should always explore your options before choosing the best lighting fixtures for your exterior home lighting needs.