Looking to improve the beauty and value of your home? A complete remodel or just some upgrades? Let us show you 7 surprising ways landscape lighting improves your home.
Outdoor landscape lighting adds value and beauty to your home.
One highly valuable home-improvement opportunity is to accentuate the home’s outdoor architecture, paths, outdoor living spaces, landscape features, and security points with appropriate outdoor LED lighting. Sure, spotlights placed on the corners of the house, and a few ugly fluorescent bulbs in the garage allow you to see at night when you need to step outside, but those don’t qualify as beautiful landscape lighting design. A much better approach is to look at how lighting can accentuate the efforts you put into making your house and landscaping a beautiful work of art as well as a place you call home. Whether you intend to live there in retirement or sell the house as a valuable investment, these both will benefit from a professional outdoor landscape lighting design.
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recommends that homeowners invest 10 percent of the home’s value in total outdoor landscape and lighting design.
If you drive through your neighborhood at night, the home that will stand out the most is the one that has properly designed outdoor landscape lighting. Look how the architectural lighting makes the house stands out on its own and the featured landscape elements are glowing, making it the masterpiece on the block. Now ask yourself – do prospective buyers take notice of this before purchasing? In today’s market, you can count on it.
7 Surprising Ways Landscape Lighting Improves Your Home
Well-designed exterior lighting adds value to your home in several ways.
1. Security Lighting
Most importantly is your family’s security and safety – Protect your family and valuables first and foremost. Criminals work in shadows, but an outdoor, well-lit home doesn’t provide them with places to hide. When scoping a neighborhood, they certainly will pass on a well-illuminated house. A by-product of a beautifully illuminated home is security. It is not necessary to have high powered obnoxious glaring lighting to achieve this necessary security.
2. Outdoor Lighting Increases Home Value
Most home-owners also want to know, what is the financial added value to having custom outdoor lighting. Contractors and real estate experts generally claim 15% of a homes’ value can be earned through beautiful landscape and lighting design. Enjoy the beauty while you live there and take it to the bank when you sell. Many new high-end real estate ads show photographs of tastefully illuminated homes at night. It gives the home a look of elegance and uniqueness.
3. Landscape Lighting Increases Hours and Utilization of Outdoor Living Spaces
Extend the hours of use for your outdoor living area well into the evening with patio lighting. Using the inviting bistro string lights on landscape features like fountains and pools to light up your outdoor entertainment area, giving you more entertainment space and utilization. Practical patio lighting such as spotlights on BBQ and countertops helps create that outdoor kitchen. Dining at the patio is also much more relaxing with strategically placed downlighting fixtures.
4. Impress Your Neighbors by Improving the Neighborhood
Be the talk of the neighborhood with your beautiful “after-dark” curb appeal for your guests and neighbors. Both will appreciate the care and tenacity you have put into the house, as it provides a warm and welcoming gesture for the company while adding value to the neighborhood with a sense of added curb appeal.
5. Outdoor Lighting Provides Safety
Eliminate unnecessary falls or injuries: Get your guests safely up your pathway and to your front door after dark. You know your house well enough to walk out to the driveway in the dark, but your friends need to be able to see where they’re going.
6. Landscape Lighting Extends Interior Living Spaces
In the design process is important to consider what is viewed outside large windows and doors. This is one of the most important benefits of outdoor lighting because this is experienced every night from inside the home. Glass doors and windows turn into dramatic landscape painting if the lighting design was done with this in mind. What we say is “ if it is a visual asset in the day it shouldn’t disappear at night”
Custom outdoor lighting can greatly expand interior living spaces and add drama to the inside of the home.
7. Outdoor Lighting Adds FREE Real Estate
Very often our clients’ property is adjacent to large green belt areas that contain dramatic natural beauty. These nearby areas may have some giant Eucalyptus or CA Pepper trees or just a slope covered in green vegetation that looks great in the day. Many homeowners purchase their property because of the beautiful backyards and their views beyond their property. It’s a shame that these valuable visual assets disappear into the darkness.
Again, what we say is “if it’s a visual asset in the day it shouldn’t disappear in the night darkness.”
Outdoor Lighting Design Styles and Choices
In some cases, the architecture of the building in and of itself determines how a landscape lighting company might create the lighting design. Also, the landscape features you have will highly determine the features and focus of the outdoor landscape lighting choices; architectural lighting, patio lighting, pool lighting, path lighting, String lighting, fountain lighting, moonlight, and shadow lighting are only a few of your options. Decisions concerning cool or warm lighting might depend on the color scheme you’ve chosen for the house, but in some cases, it might also depend on the surrounding street lighting and how the house is placed in the neighborhood. Traditional lighting styles are of course available, but LED lighting is the new gold standard. LED lights that are used today, are 80% more energy-efficient and have a 10 times greater lamp life. LED lighting is a no brainer. LED outdoor lighting can also be customized to be incorporated into many unique applications. New developments in LEDs have made LED outdoor lighting more affordable than ever.
Landscape Lighting Design, Installation, and Repair Safety & Laws
Like many other home improvement projects, landscape lighting might seem like a project you can do yourself. But in reality, there are building and electric codes that need to be adhered to, safety issues dealing with electricity. Most importantly, is to have an experienced intuitive landscape lighting designer on your project. They will come up with ideas that most will have never thought of. The lighting designer gives you suggestions and will know how the outdoor lighting will look at the many unique elements of your home. This is one of the home improvement areas where it pays to use an expert in outdoor lighting design. Save yourself a headache on your project and don’t skimp and go with poor quality materials, design, and installation. Do it right the first time.
To discuss your needs with an award-winning Orange County Landscape Lighting Company, give Illuminated Concepts a call and one of our professional representatives will be happy to discuss your outdoor lighting needs and how we can accomplish them for you.
Illuminated Concepts: (949) 455- 9914
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