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Here we go - all about outdoor lighting! Let’s start with this massive light called an Estate Path Light by Volt.
In this project the homeowners were pro lighting and you’ll see in the video how many outdoor lights this project has for their outdoor living space. Really think about lights when you're planning your space. Lighting is the key to a beautiful nighttime Oasis for you and your friends.
Let me introduce Josh. He is our lighting expert, our outdoor lighting genius. We will get his opinion on outdoor lighting. HE is a little camera shy, so the interview is voice only.
JOSH - when you're thinking about lighting, what's the first thing you educate the client on?
Typically, on safety first. Stairways, pathways, anywhere heavy traffic takes place, anything with the ledge or a step. Then we move into the aspects of up lighting, highlighting the yard, the landscaping and the house. I don't think that they really think about safety a lot of times. I mean, you know there's one out of 10 clients, who say, “My mom fell down the stairs.” Typically, they are thinking they want their house lit up and the trees so it stands out in the neighborhood.
Back to the Volt large extra-large estate path light, highlighting it to let you see how important thinking through Outdoor Lighting Setups. There are some creative ways to light up an area, especially when they have a huge main entrance. This really casts out plenty of light in this project. The video tour takes you on a lighting tour - showing night shots and how effective lights are in your backyard space. So, no matter where you are, no matter where you're going, you're being directed by the lights at night.
JOSH - What are some of the best ways to light up an outdoor living space?
You have your covered structures and your houses and it's nice to be able to highlight certain areas of the structures themselves, especially if you have multi-level homes. You’ll want to accent the nice focal specimen type trees; those are nice to light up. Also, putting lighting in ledges around steps & fire pits and create a good ambiance through the yard. It is also effective to light up a portion of the home as it has a long stretch - highlighting the frame and windows. I like strip lighting too as it is super simple to work with and it's one of those things that provides good lighting versus a little light in the middle. You can highlight multiple runs with it as it comes in 84 ft rolls. You can do massive areas underneath bars and kitchenettes as well as being able to highlight some of the lesser known and lesser seen aspects of your hardscape.
JOSH - How do Bistro lights work in an outdoor space? Are they set up on a transformer to come on each evening?
Correct and you can set it. There are things you can install that control those separately an inline output type of converter that will delay or control the time as you are not always utilizing your bistro lights You want them on when you are entertaining, where as your landscape lighting, you want that to fully until late in the night and picking up at another start time. You know when you’re walking out to your car in the dark.
JOSH - What about water features? What’s the trick for that?
What I like to add is a color changing option to water features and spas to enhance the effects.
JOSH - What are the dark blank spots in a backyard called?
Negative Space - and it’s important. You don’t have to light up huge areas where there's nothing to spotlight - you want to be more artistic, you don't want it to look like you're in Hollywood - little bits of negative space works best. Especially as it provides a different texture to the landscape at nighttime.
JOSH - I use FX Luminaire lighting in all the projects, their price point is better than a lot of out there and the product seems to be a better built and their controllers come in four types of varieties of things you can do, whether it's zoning, Deming or you can put color changing lights in. So, I've really found FX after utilizing other types in the industry in the years I've been doing this - I’ve found that FX is my go-to.
Hopefully we’ve helped educate you on outdoor lights, especially on what to light up, how to light it up and all the different specialty lights that you can use. Alright guys, thank you for watching.
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