As we move into the winter season and temperatures begin to drop, an easy approach to creating an inviting outdoor environment is to add exterior lighting. Lighting features can help your home maintain a warm, cozy atmosphere in the midst of winter’s shorter days, cooler temperatures, and barren trees. Changing your lighting fixtures can spruce up your home’s exterior while improving functionality.
Why Add Lighting to Your Home?
Curb Appeal
Outdoor lighting is an easy way to increase your home’s curb appeal. Lighting features can brighten up your home’s dark areas at night and uphold the charm it has during the day. For optimal results, try emphasizing features of your yard that stand out, such as a front porch or path leading to your home. Through the addition of a few simple lighting choices, your outdoor space will be well-lit and appealing from the street.
Functionality
Lighting can greatly increase the functionality of your outdoor space. By adding positional or task-specific lighting, you can highlight sections of your yard. Try placing your lighting in a location that best suits the needs of your space, such as above an outdoor kitchen area or on top of a mailbox. Consider how the style of lighting will further enhance the space as well. For example, use string lights to accent a fire pit, grilling area, or outdoor seating. Whether it’s a living area or a porch walkway, basic lighting features can retain a space’s use into the night.
Security
A practical benefit of outdoor lighting is the security aspect. Having a vivid front porch or illuminated landscape will give your home a sense of use and wellbeing. Not only does lighting help prevent potential falls, but it also deters potential intruders. Lighting enhances darkened regions, lessening the ability of intruders to hide in the shadows. Either set manually or through automatic timers, lighting features will highlight your home as well as increase safety and security.
Where to Add Lighting
When choosing your home’s lighting arrangements, it is necessary to first determine the space’s needs. Use your current outdoor setup as a guide to place your lighting. Try walking around the perimeter of your home or viewing your house from the street at night to get a better idea of what could be enhanced. Reflect on your current landscaping and yard arrangements and disperse your lighting features accordingly. Likewise, consider how your outdoor lighting will be seen from the interior of your home. This can be used as a guide to determine whether an area is over or under illuminated. If there is too much light, unnecessary light will creep into the interior of the home while simultaneously washing out or creating glare amongst the outdoor spaces you are wishing to highlight.
Furthermore, acknowledge how the space’s purpose will optimize your lighting. For example, if your yard has a landscaping or gardening area, it would be beneficial to add lighting that accents or complements the area. This type of lighting can be achieved at a modest budget through the use of spotlights, string lights, or landscaping kits. If you have an outdoor outlet available, landscape lighting that plugs directly into an outlet is a great choice to light up multiple sections in close proximity through a single, discreet cord. For general illumination, add lighting fixtures to a front porch or a walkway to increase awareness. Lighting can also be placed around the driveway, garage, and front door to improve visibility and functionality of the front of the home.
Lighting Choices to Consider
Outdoor areas are an extension of the home. For a cohesive indoor-outdoor space, choose outdoor lighting that mirrors the design and layout of your interior living rooms. Depending on the purpose of your space, the type of lighting used will vary in brightness, color, and wattage. Envision how your yard will be used and whether it would be more applicable to buy brighter, whiter lights or lights with a softer, dimmer tone.
For places that require dim lighting, whether for energy saving purposes or appeal, lamps, lanterns, and outdoor ceiling fans can bring the optimal amount of light to multi-purpose areas. These lights can be subdued to create a lesser amount of light for a more relaxed scene while maintaining the area’s functionality if a larger amount of light is required. Outdoor lighting does not need to be as bright as indoor lighting since a minimal amount of light can be effective to enhance a dark region.
Make sure to select lighting options that correlate best to the space’s function. To brighten the front of your home, place pendant or wall lights on a front porch or on an exterior wall. Moreover, lighting options such as a front door fixture, lamp posts, or a side door lantern will add security to your home and illuminate the surrounding area. For additional visibility, place LED or solar powered lights around your driveway or garden space to increase safety. Lastly, if you’re looking to maintain the function of a walkway or patio, try adding flood, security, or area lights to enhance the region.
While lighting is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to update your outdoor space, it’s important to opt for high quality, reliable lighting materials when choosing your fixtures. Light bulbs have different temperatures that measure light and color. A light’s kelvin unit defines whether the bulb will give off a softer or harsher illumination. Bulbs that run between 2,000 and 3,000 kelvins are deemed to be the ideal temperature for many outdoor settings.
Outdoor lighting is a simple option to add comfort and use to your outdoor spaces this winter. Although it may not seem vital to have well-lit outdoor areas, you’ll be amazed at how much it contributes to your home’s atmosphere. Whether you’re choosing lighting sources for curb appeal, functionality, or security purposes, the results are sure to add value to your home’s exterior. 
Kate Bernicke
Home & Yard Magazine
