Proper outdoor lighting breathes new life into your house, giving it a unique and distinct look. Modern lighting solutions offer functional and stylistic options. There are great outdoor lighting ideas for everything, from your patio to your outdoor pool and even your garden.
However, choosing the proper lighting style for your house front can be challenging. After all, there are many outdoor lighting options: spotlights, recessed lights, step lights, floodlights, and many more.
So let us help you Level up the House Front with these 12 Creative Lighting Ideas.
Lighting Ideas for House Exterior
The House exterior should be the primary target of your creativity. After all, your exterior is the first thing anyone will notice. So, it only makes sense for us to start here.
Idea 1: Outdoor Accent Lighting
Let’s start with the simplest and easiest method to improve your outdoor wall lighting, accent lighting.
Accent lights add visual intrigue to your house by highlighting particular areas or architectural details. Cover the perimeter of your home with spotlights and aim at your exterior walls. By strategically placing the lights, you can give your house a warm comfy glow.
Your house has a distinct look in daylight, which disappears before sunset. Of course, lighting up your home fully at night is no longer necessary. But with outdoor lighting ideas, you can selectively light specific areas of your house to give it a unique look.
Considerations
To go with these lighting ideas, you need to consider two elements.
- Your light placement should be as close to your house walls as possible and away from doors and windows.
Your primary focus should be the house front; the sides of a house are only feasible if your house is a fair distance from your neighbors. Otherwise, your accent lights will bleed over into your neighbor’s house.
- Your choice of lighting fixtures is limited to spotlights because they are directional, smaller, and less noticeable. However, a light bar near the wall’s base may benefit certain houses.
Ensure you have bushes or plants to cover the light bar, so it’s less noticeable. Security, outdoor, and accent lights all prefer spotlighting or floodlighting. You cannot go wrong with these options.
Idea 2: Recessed Garage Lights
Recessed lighting is an excellent alternative to accent spotlighting. Where spotlights shot light from the bottom upwards, recessed lighting shot light from top to bottom.
Garages are unique because front clearance is essential for vehicles entering and exiting. So the best option is recessed lights placed in the garage ceiling directly aimed at the garage door.
The primary benefit of this lighting style is space efficiency. Recessed lights are less powerful low voltage lights but take less space and are more versatile. Properly placed recessed lights feel invisible and become a part of the house.
Garage doors are large blank canvases waiting for you to add your pizazz.
Considerations
Your only consideration here should be lighting consistency. Your garage lighting should complement and match your other outdoor lighting.
Color temperature, light placement, and light intensity are the primary factors you can adjust to give a uniform look to your house.
Idea 3: Outdoor Step Lights
Outdoor Step lighting is a practical and stylistic lighting idea.
Outdoor step lights accomplish two tasks, safety and style. People can slip and get seriously injured from a poorly lit staircase. Lighting solutions here aren’t just aesthetical. They are also practical.
Outdoor step lighting illuminates the stairs to create a visible glow under your feet. Acting as a whimsical guide to help light your path.
Considerations
Step lighting is not easy to install. They require specific types of stairs for maximum effectiveness. There are two ways of adding outdoor step lighting.
- The first method involves embedding recessed LED lights into each step. This method yields the best possible result but is costly and unsuitable for concrete steps.
- The second method involves placing small lamps on each step’s side. This lighting method is slightly less effective because the distance between the light source and the steps increases. But you do get the option to customize your lighting by choosing complementing lamps.
However, this method is only possible if you have wise steps or extra clearance to the side.
Idea 4: Small Diffused Light on your Front Door
Add a small light on your front door for a warm and welcoming feel.
Typically, front door lights only have one goal, to help you quickly unlock your door at night. But lighting shouldn’t be limited to practical solutions. Instead, you can use LED lighting as both a reasonable solution and a stylistic choice. If you have guests at the front door, proper lighting ensures they stand in a nice, comforting light.
Considerations
This idea is fairly simple and requires you to be mindful of your light placement. If your light is placed too low, it will directly end up in your eyes. And if the light is set too high, it won’t correctly illuminate your front door.
You can choose side-mounted lights, though we recommend two identical lighting fixtures on each side of the door for excellent symmetry.
Lighting Ideas for Path
An adequately lit pathway or driveway provides a gentle transition from the road to the house. Path lights are an appetizer to your main dish, your home. Your choice of outdoor lights here determines the overall expectations of your hose.
Idea 5: Solar Lamps along the Pathway
Decorate your house pathway with small outdoor solar lamps placed near the ground.
Solar lamps are an excellent choice for outdoor lighting because they can automatically be configured to turn on at night. Having pathway bollard lights guide your way at night feels magical and something out of a fairytale.
By using solar-powered lamps, you are freeing yourself from typical lighting constraints. You can place solar lamps anywhere if they get enough light during the day. Additionally, you can use the excess solar energy to power your lawn sprinklers.
You can use the same setup for your driveway as well.
Considerations
Sunlight is your only primary consideration for this idea. Now, all solar lamps don’t need to be under direct sunlight. However, enough lights must be under direct sunlight to meet the minimum energy requirements.
Idea 6: Ground Lights for Driveway
Place recessed LED lights along the length of your driveway.
An industrial design is the best choice for your concrete driveways, something simple, sturdy, and efficient. Lamps take up too much vertical space, and some small driveways may not accommodate above-ground light fixtures.
Incorporating recessed path lights into your lighting ideas offers a stealthy look; they are practically invisible during the day, and most people won’t notice these in-ground light fixtures until you light them up.
Ground lights are sturdier and can easily withstand someone accidentally driving over them.
Considerations
Driveways are made of concrete or bricks; neither material is ideal for ground lighting. Gardens and yards are soft soil covered in grass, so adding recessed lights is as simple as digging holes.
Concrete driveways require way more effort on path lights, not just for the recessed lights but also for the accompanying wiring.
Ideas for Outdoor Sitting Areas
Outdoors are not nearly as comfortable and cozy as indoors. They can be cold, dark, and unappealing. So let’s use creative lighting ideas to make the outdoor sitting areas more comfortable.
Idea 7: Patio String Lighting
Use parallel string lights to cover the patio area.
Patios aren’t just for enjoying the sun during the day. Patios are excellent outdoor dining areas that deserve an equally perfect lighting setup. One way to light a patio properly is warm outdoor string lighting.
You have alternative lighting options like fairy lights or cable track lights, but each has its problems. Here is a brief comparison of the three lighting styles.
- Fairy lighting has low brightness, so they won’t have proper illumination.
- Cable track lighting is unsuited for outdoor lighting because it lacks proper water resistance.
- String lighting is just large fairy lights with customizable light bulbs. They have better illumination and are generally weather-resistant.
If you have a tree in your backyard, we recommend running the light strip from your house to the tree. Otherwise, you must erect a post in your backyard to support your string lights.
Considerations
You need to consider two factors for this lighting idea closely,
- String lights weigh quite a bit, so you should properly secure these lights for safety. Outdoor lighting requires properly shielded wires, which constitute most of the weight of string lighting.
- We don’t recommend using incandescent or halogen bulbs for outdoor use. The glass made of these light fixture bulbs means they break easily under bad weather, whereas LED bulbs in fixtures are safer and less susceptible to such conditions.
Idea 8: Gazebo Light Curtains
Use parallel runs of fairy lights to create a pseudo curtain and drape this curtain around your gazebo.
We understand that most people won’t have a gazebo in their garden. But this garden lighting idea applies to any outdoor sitting area with a small roof.
Fairy lights don’t have much luminance, but you can overcome this minor shortcoming with enough lights. Since these lights are cheaper than most lighting solutions, you can use as many as possible without worrying about cost or power requirements.
So far, this is the most accessible and easy-to-execute lighting style. But if you want to kick this idea up a notch, you can add bale plants on the top of your gazebo. Plants will help camouflage the cables of the fairy lights and give the effect of floating lights.
Considerations
This light fixture isn’t suited for long-term operation, so running them continuously for long hours will decrease their lifespan. From a financial perspective, burnt fairy lights are not an issue because they are inexpensive. But from a labor perspective, replacing an entire fairy light curtain will be a long and tedious process.
Luckily most quality this kind of light fixture can easily run all night without any issues.
Landscape Lighting Ideas
No list of outdoor lighting ideas is complete without landscape lights. Since landscapes like gardens and yards vary significantly from house to house. We decided to focus on flexible landscape lighting ideas that can be applied to most houses.
Idea 9: Bottom Lit Trees & Bushes
Place in-ground lights at the base of your trees to highlight your trees with a subtle underflow.
Trees and bushes don’t have a lot of flexibility for light placement. The only practical method of landscape lighting is bottom-placed lights. In-ground lights are particularly suited for this job as all their wiring is underground.
By placing the lights around the base of a tree, you can evenly illuminate the tree leaves. Bottom lighting will give your landscape a mystical warmth and glow. The key to this lighting style is proper lighting for the landscape.
Considerations
There is only one consideration for these outdoor lighting ideas, corrosion. Since the in-ground light fixtures are next to plants and trees, they are exposed to water and fertilizers. Before installing landscape lighting, make sure you are using water-resistance lights with appropriate IP ratings.
Idea 10: Light Bales from Trees
Hang string lights from tree branches and use them as a background for outdoor sitting.
Admittedly this lighting solution doesn’t have a broad appeal, but it is a unique idea that stands out from the rest. If you have a lovely tall tree in your yard, why not make the best out of it by using it as a gazebo replacement?
Short string lights hanging from tree branches will look like a glowing ball of light. Add multiple light strips according to your desired lighting requirement, and place a table and some chairs underneath.
We are essentially combining landscape lighting and outdoor dining lighting into one idea. It maximizes the efficiency of landscape lighting by turning a tree into a lamp post. Instead of needlessly lighting up a tree and a dining area, you can combine the two lighting styles into a single spot in your house.
Considerations
Tree selection is essential for this lighting idea. Short trees aren’t viable because you would not have enough space to hang your lights. Tall trees are not feasible because the lights would be too high on any excellent dining area. You require medium-sized trees with long branches and relatively few tree leaves.
Underwater Lighting Ideas
Finally, we conclude our outdoor lighting ideas with underwater lighting. Most large houses have outdoor swimming pools, water fountains, and koi ponds. Adding creative lighting to the water for a unique look makes sense.
Idea 11: Addressable Underwater Pool Lighting
Add RGB lighting to the inside of your pool.
When underwater lights refract throughout the pool, it looks like the water is glowing. We suggest you take underwater lighting to the next step by using addressable RGB lights.
If you’re unfamiliar with RGB lights, they are LED lights with Red, Blue, and Green diodes, which combine to form a variety of colors. RGB LED strip lights are commonly used in car and computer modding.
Using RGB lights, you can create the illusion of colored pool water. The reason pools have a blue hue is the blue pool tiling. So you can change the color of your pool by either changing the tiles or changing the RGB lights.
Considerations
RGB lights are typically not used for pools, as pools are relatively large. Using RGB light underwater and for a large pool requires additional electrical wiring for easily addressable colors.
Idea 12: Underwater Fountain Lighting
You can add lights to a fountain using colored or RGB LED lights like underwater lighting.
Colored fountain lights are relatively common in large hotels and parks. But there is no reason you shouldn’t use this lighting technique for your front yard fountain. As we discussed previously, water is an excellent carrier of light. A properly placed LED light will light up the fountain and create an unreal, magical atmosphere.
Fountains typically have a light ring around them, acting as accent lighting. This underwater lighting idea works in conjunction with that accent light. Mix and match different lighting styles to customize your fountains’ look.
Considerations
You only need to focus on the placement of lights. Placing the lights near the water outlet would be best for maximum effectiveness. The goal is to color the flowing water.
Conclusion
We hope this article has provided you with some excellent outdoor lighting ideas. Feel free to innovate on these ideas and create the perfect lighting solution for your house. Lighting is a creative exercise and is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Your taste, style, and house layout will profoundly impact your outdoor lighting solution.
Light up Your Front of House with RC Lighting
If you’re looking for some excellent lighting solutions, we recommend RC Lighting. We have an extensive catalog of LED lighting solutions, ranging from Underwater Spotlights to In-Ground LED lights. We have no minimum order quantity and offer samples before order placement. RC Lighting provides the best products and the best customer service.
For additional information and to get a customized quote, Contact Us Now!
