The exterior of your home is a guest or buyer’s first impression of it. Even if you spend years meticulously perfecting the inside of your house, staging and upgrading it, if you neglect the facade, you’ll diminish the property’s overall beauty. Of the exterior improvements you can make, lighting is one of the most important areas to focus on. The right lighting can make your house look more appealing, expensive, and elegant. It can gloss up an otherwise bland exterior, adding class, grace and a dash of the dramatic.
If you’re a homeowner in Tulsa, OK and you’re looking to take your property to the next level in terms of style, start by reconsidering your exterior lighting. At Proactive Landscaping, we’ve compiled 5 tips to help you get started sprucing up your siding.
1. Consider The Home’s Age & Style
Lighting should complement the original style of your home rather than contradict it. For example, if you have a contemporary home, opt for sleek modern lighting with clean lines and simple shapes. If you have a more traditional house style, you can select more elaborate coach lights, lanterns, and lamp posts. Do your research and make sure the lighting you choose doesn’t clash with the era of your residence’s architecture. If you have an English Tudor-style dwelling, shimmery disco ball-esque orbs may not be your first choice.
2. Choose Warm LEDs to Avoid Bugs
Many people prefer warm, golden-toned light over the harsh clinical feel of white lights – but not everyone does. Whatever your preference is, choose warmer hued LEDs if you want to avoid moths, mosquitoes, and flies. Incandescent light bulbs along with bulbs that emit a cooler blue undertone are much more likely to attract pests, so whether you want to keep your doorway free of bugs or keep them off your food while you dine on the balcony, go for golden LEDs.
3. Select Solar-Powered Lighting
Add beautiful solar powered lights to your garden, flowerbeds, pathway, and sundeck to avoid dealing with the hassle of wiring. These relatively inexpensive additions can add a gorgeous ambient radiance to your home after sunset.
4. Know the Different Lighting Techniques & Their Advantages
Does the phrase accent lighting mean anything to you? How about task and safety lighting? Or uplighting? Some of it is decorative, while some is functional. Plan accordingly and you can have the best of both worlds. Accent lighting is a strategic lighting technique that highlights certain features, like in a museum or gallery. Running track lighting along a band of stone veneer is a great way to make use of this. Uplighting shines a beam upward, creating a stunning fan of light on a section of the exterior. Task lighting is any light that is placed to help you complete a given task, such as yard work.
Safety lighting is any outdoor lighting that improves safety, whether it’s a motion sensor light to alert you to suspicious movement around the home or simply gracefully lighting the driveway, entrance, and path so that guests can make their way to the front door safely.
5. Light Up the Garden
Don’t neglect your front and back yards or your garden when rethinking your outdoor lighting. You can vastly improve curb appeal and outdoor entertainment spaces with a little light. Adding step lights to any stairs on your patio or back deck can be a beautiful touch. Stringing fairy lights along your fence or draping net lights ornamentally over trees and shrubs will transform your yard into a magical garden party oasis. Similarly, tucking landscape lights in and around your yard’s vegetation will add an ethereal woodland glow to your property.
If you’re ready to start transforming your home, plan your next lighting installation today. Get a free landscape lighting quote from Proactive Landscaping; just visit this link and fill out our handy form.
