20 Unique Lighting Ideas for your Backyard
The outside of your home is just as important as the inside, when it comes to making it beautiful, warm and inviting. If you love to spend time out doors in your backyard, but it feels dark and drab and not a place you like to entertain in, you can lighten and brighten the area so that it is useable and enjoyable, just by adding some outdoor lighting.
There are literally endless ideas for creating beautiful outdoor lighting for your backyard. No matter what type of home you have; how big or small, the shape of the yard, patio or whether you have a grand patio or not, you can brighten the backyard and create a place that you want to spend time entertaining, relaxing, or just gazing at the stars. If you have been looking for ideas for backyard lighting, here are a few tips to get you started.
1. Decide on function
First, you will want to decide how functional the lighting will be. Will it be needed to serve multiple purposes, such as ambience, bright enough to eat by, grill by, or just decorative. Depending on how much light you will need, this will help you decide what type of lights you will need, how many, an where they will need to be placed, or installed.
2. Do you want to be able to see them from inside the home?
Some people like to be able to enjoy the outdoor lighting from inside the home as well as the out. Outdoor lighting can often be a decorative visual from inside the house from certain rooms, or from all of the windows that face the backyard. If being able to enjoy your backyard lighting from inside the house and from which windows, will also serve as a guideline as to what type of lighting and where it will be installed.
3. Use your foliage
Your trees and shrubbery can be a great source of lighting décor placement. Trees are great places to hang light lamps and other dangling lights. Use your trees for uplighting, downlighting and crosslighting. Shrubs are also an ideal place for crosslighting and brightening, or using groupings of flowering shrubs as focal points.
4. Water features
Water fountains or other water features are another choice for a focal point to be lit. Lighting around the base of the water feature or fountain, along with lights inside the water, are also nice touches. Lights used inside water fountains can be colored to give an added dramatic effect.
5. Pathways and walkways
Pathways and walkways can be lit. Place pathway lights along the way, setting them a distance apart that gives a nice even glow for better vision, as well as ambience. Have your pathway lighting lead up to a beautiful garden spot, a backyard pool, or other focal point in your yard. Pathway lights can be purchased in several different heights, depending on the amount of lighting you need, the height of foliage it will planted around or under, among other determining factors.
6. Be creative
Creativity and imagination are a big part of creating beautiful outdoor lighting for your backyard. Lighting on trellises, overhangs, around pools and spas, and other special features and areas, can open up your backyard and bring it into the light, even after dark. Mix and match types of lighting to set the tone and mood in certain areas of the yard. Use your lighting to create depth and special effects. The more creative you are, the more intriguing and inviting it can be.
Keep scrolling to see 20 unique lighting ideas for your backyard.
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