Landscape lighting

Sounds basic but drive around neighborhoods at night and take note of elements that you like.

Google pictures of landscape lighting. When you see something you like, try to figure out what type of lights are being used. Then find the specific fixtures of those types.

Here are a couple of two-story homes:

To me, it looks like this house used cool spotlights. There are four downlights in the roof peaks and five uplights in the landscaping.



This house looks like they used warm uplights only.

I also went with volt and love it (go through costco for best deal). I filled in with cheaper spotlights from amazon if needed in unimportant areas. I am currently doing a big reno/addition and am going to replace the fascia/soffit on my entire house. That means I need to make a decision on downlights. I know I want downlights in the back and sides of my house where landscape up lights dont make snese but not sure if I want to combine up lights and down lights in the front of my house yet or not.

I've looked at Volt lighting....which is one of the reasons for the question/opinions. There are 10 different spotlights. Lots of options to choose from, but I'm unfamiliar with all of it. I could buy everything I need there, but unsure if I would choose the "right stuff".

The downlighting on the second story looks cool, but HTF will I get wires and shite up there. The little details are what I'm interested in. Did anyone hire a pro?

I even thought of doing most of it myself, then only hiring someone to help with the difficult areas (like second story). I dunno

quote:

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If you did it yourself, how did you come up with what to use (say spotlight vs. floodlight for a certain location).

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There are a handful of good message boards with informative links and handful of books on the matter. My house had some FX RS uplights, so I decided to keep with the look. I have 6 white columns on a front porch with a dark roof and 3 dormers up top- I used a cool white (5000k) on the columns. In the backyard for the trees, I went with a warmer white (3000k). I have not added wall washes yet- my rule will be one on each side of every window that isn’t on a porch. My column rule is one per column. My landscape rule is one per tree, though I have a fairly grand live oak that comes up out of a large azalea that I have not figured out how to light yet.
I have a corner lot with a sidewalk and a path from the sidewalk to my main door. It is simple concrete with no beds on either side. I debated pathway lighting, but I would be the only house with it. Seems like a pain to edge around. I already have an in-ground sprinkler system, so I decided eventually that I’m only doing lighting in beds so I don’t have to worry about those things (though I do have 2 crepe myrtles near the road that I’d like to light up. I’ve put this in the “pipe dream” category because it’s not currently practical without professional help, because I don’t want to do it bad enough to trench under a sidewalk, down a yard, and dodge sprinklers and my gas line along the way. And no, I’m not horribly worried about the gas line)

LED and Halogen powering is wildly different. I’ve got 2x 300w transformers. With halogens, this allowed for 12x 50w mr16 fixtures. With LED bulbs (~7w), I can put around 6x that. There is still some voltage drop concern. You should familiarize yourself with the concept and Google a calculator and plug it in and make sure you’re at a safe number, or if you do eventually put 30 lights on a transformer in one, long, snaking line, you’ll have a dimmer light on the end than in the beginning, more than likely.


There are color changing and dimming fixtures out there. Both zigbee (gledopto mr16 bulbs. Haven’t used them. Will buy one to test eventually) and integrated remote-only “dumb” ones, and then a few “smart” ones, though if you’re going to go with a “smart” option, Phillips Hue is probably the best regarded. Fixtures are limited. They use a proprietary cable and connector. There are lots of folks online who have cut the connector off and plugged in a generic DC 24v (yes, an odd number you won’t see many places with landscape lighting) power supply. Mind your positive and negative if you go this route.

So, in short, things to learn:
How to place lights per feature (highlights above)
The color white you want (or color color)




Second stories are beyond me.



And then if you are just secretly a baller who wants colored lighting and professional help or someone who just wants to feel bad about a product line designed for people who are far, far wealthier than they are (like me) check out the FX Luminaire Luxor line of transformers and accessories. You can buy a lot of their stuff online if you look, but they only directly sell to dealers. They do make nice stuff, but if I were going ground up, I’d probably still go with retrofit Mr16 LED bulbs instead of integrated LEDs, but I probably would choose Volt fixtures over my FX ones. I think MSRP is around $70-100/spotlight (occasionally $50 on Amazon) whereas you can get Volt about half the price. But if you want a specific color that isn’t what volt offers, you’re going to be pretty SOL until you hit that ~$100/fixture range (FX and Kichler are two high quality brands with prices to match).



Good luck. It’s a rabbit hole out there.