Your yard and landscape are just as much a part of your home as your house, so planning your landscape lighting should be done with as much care as you have taken to light your home’s interior. Covered patios and porches, and outdoor entertaining areas may need indoor lighting techniques such as recessed down lights and wall box dimmer controls that allow you to adjust light levels, show off the structure, and make your home a lighting gallery. Setting the tone between the threshold of your home lighting plan and your outdoor lights in such a manner will establish the conceptual and emotional foundation of your design plan that will then extend into the green, open landscape of your yard.
You should develop a landscape lighting plan that uses a combination of light and shadows.
Homeowners often mistakenly think that shadows are a bad thing when planning a lighting design. They believe the purpose of lighting is to get rid of all the dark spots in an area. The opposite is really true. Landscape lights best used to create a healthy balance between light and shadow. Depending on the degree to which you vary the contrast of these two elements, you can create all sorts of luminary effects and differing states of mind. Bathing dark places in your yard in soft ambient lighting mimics the effects of moonlight and is highly romantic. Outdoor path lighting provides a visual aid to trip hazards and other obstacles in the garden. Up lighting ornamental statuary and structures will help create an elevated sense of emotion apropos to outdoor parties. Hidden lighting inside shrubbery and flower beds will create a mystical effect where objects seem to glow with a light of their own. How you plan your outdoor garden lighting will really depend in the end on how you plan to feel when you look out of your window at night, or entertain family and guests outdoors. Begin by evaluating plant materials, flower beds, trees, and gardens. These are elements that create shadow, and they make for excellent guidelines to follow when laying down the basics of an outdoor custom home lighting system.
Think of layering the light when you are developing a plan for illuminating your landscape.
ILD landscaping lighting professionals recommend four distinctive layers of luminance, some of which will distinctly overlap one another; and others of which will blend and synthesize together. Every landscape lighting design is different and has to be planned around the unique dimensions of a yard and its contents. Fountains, sculptures, rock formations, bridges, and ornamental structures provide ideal accent and feature lighting opportunities. Tree lighting with mercury vapor tree lights creates pools of artificial moonlight, and is a favorite design theme among ILD clientele. Depending on the overall mood you wish to create, any number of light fixtures types can be used to light these objects. You may want to install fixtures that are completely hidden and only illuminate objects of interest, or you may go the other route and use highly visible, decorative lights that add an additional aesthetic to your yard. If you are unsure of what type of fixtures to use, call an outdoor lighting contractor like Illuminations Lighting Design and request a consultation with one of our professionals who can explain the benefits of specialty commercial grade fixtures made especially for what you have in mind.
Illuminations Lighting Design is the only "One Stop" destination for lighting design, engineering, landscape lighting services and installation in the state of Texas, and remains unrivaled by any lighting firm in the United States for lighting that is art. As homes grow larger and needs become more complex, having a single resource provides home owners with peace of mind. This translates into a smoother process, reduced costs and a better product.
Where is your landscape lighting design studio located?
We are located in the heart of Houston just west of Downtown at the corner of Durham Drive and Blossom Street, which is located between Memorial Drive and Washington Avenue in the Rice Military Subdivision.Although we are located in Houston Texas we provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.
Call us today at 713-863-1133 or 800-863-1184, visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.
Labels: Austin Landscape Lighting, Houston Electrical Contractors, Landscape Lighting Consultants, Landscape Lighting Professional, Landscape Outdoor Lighting, Planning Landscape Lighting
Tree lighting is one of the most superb forms of lighting design. Any landscape with large enough trees will be enhanced by this highly sophisticated and innovative lighting technique. Tree lighting is done by concealing mercury vapor lights in the higher branches of the tree where they cannot be seen by viewers on the ground. Mercury vapor lights give off a blue-white light very similar to moonlight that filters through the leaves and branches and rains down onto the ground. Tree lighting’s close approximation to natural moonlight adds a romantic, almost mystical element to a place, and contributes to a feeling of time being suspended under the ambient radiance of the trees.
Illuminations Lighting and Design has worked for many years as an outdoor tree lighting and landscape lighting design firm. Over the years we have developed a number of strategies for using tree lights in almost any commercial, municipal, or residential environment to create specific benefits for a wide variety of clientele.
Municipal Parks
Tree lighting is an essential component of outdoor park lighting. Parks are special places people seek out to escape the pressure and mediocrity of the mundane world. Parks help ground and center the mind in the energies of Nature and release the stress that accumulates within the self during after prolonged activity in offices and industrial environments. It is very important that a public park visited at night be sufficiently lit to provide clear visibility for walking, conversation, and safety. As a close approximation to natural moonlight, tree lighting extends the romantic and sentimental nature of the moon itself into the general landscape. Benches located beneath tree lights or other commercial outdoor lighting are excellent places to have a meaningful conversation with a significant other, and they are much safer as well.
Academic Institutions
The architecture and landscapes of academic institutions often suggests Old World and Classical Motifs. Although America is a young country and its academies nowhere nearly as old as those of Europe, larger trees help add a sense of antiquity to these institutions because they are obviously older, and contribute greatly to the university’s image as a place of established learning and credibility. Tree lighting is needed on college and university campuses because many trees grow outward as well as up as they age. Simple up lights installed near the trunk of a tree will not adequately light its branches and leaves. Tree lights, on the other hand, can be positioned in key locations throughout the lower branches and upper canopy, creating a sublime and stately presence for students and faculty to enjoy and admire throughout the night.
Commercial Properties
Tree lights will also create a feeling of established presence for a corporate landscape. A brand new company surrounded by a canopy of mature trees will look older than it really is, and possibly gain a competitive advantage in a marketplace that often emphasizes experience over talent a bit too much. They are vital to commercial security lighting, too, because of the fact that shadows under trees allow vandals and burglars too much room to maneuver in secret.
Tree lighting helps emphasize a company’s dedication to environmental concerns. As more and more companies seek to enhance their public image by either going green or supporting green initiatives, illuminating trees around the building helps harmonize the architecture with Nature.
Hospitality Industries
All major hospitality industries depend greatly on resort tree lighting in their outdoor landscape design. Landscapes around hotels, resorts, country clubs, and five star restaurants contribute to a feeling of refined escape and elegance. Country club diners look out of clubhouse windows onto landscapes that appear sublime and timeless under the surreal ambiance of tree lighting. Guests at warm weather resorts can enjoy the site of palm trees from their window throughout the night, and hotels with tree lighting create the illusion of both a larger edifice and a more remote getaway from the pressures of life.
Tree lighting, however, does a great deal more for hospitality industries than provide decoration. These lights can actually contribute significantly to general outdoor garden lighting in a number of ways. Many resorts host events at night on a pavilion or stage under lighted trees. The illumination from the mercury lights provides an exotic compliment to general lighting that improves visibility without diminishing the feeling of escape and altered reality that a vacation is supposed to create. Golfers who play at night will especially appreciate the additional lighting under trees for those shots that are hard to make under moonlight alone. Restaurant diners who prefer the patio also will enjoy the added general lighting that comes down from the trees and fills the spaces between tables with a warm glow.
Custom Homes
Custom very often to have high fences and ornamental, gated entrances that open into a long winding drive leading up to the house. Trees that grow along these driveways sometimes arch over the pavement and mesh together into a canopy. Placing lights in these trees creates a sense of removal from the rest of the neighborhood, and the feeling that you are entering an estate and not just another home.
Tree lights also play an important role in home-based entertainment. Trees that overhand a patio can create an aura of accent lighting around the patio itself, and tree lights installed above flower beds and gardens provide a layer of ambient down light that overlaps the garden and path lights installed within the foliage itself.
Twenty Seven Years of Service Experience
These brief summaries provide a quick visual of just a few of the many things we can do with tree lights as part of our larger services in landscape lighting design and commercial exterior lighting. Our multi-specialization in five major disciplines has won us many a number of awards and established us as a leader in the design industry throughout Texas. Illuminations Lighting Design specializes in art lighting, advanced electrical wiring, lighting design, and home automation.
Where are your main offices?
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Call us today at 713-863-1133, visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.Labels: Hospitality Lighting Central Texas, Hospitality Lighting Houston, Landscape Lighting Consultants, Landscape Lighting Professional, Landscape Outdoor Lighting, Tree Lighting
Outdoor lights create a unifying aesthetic between the natural and the man made. Houses, yards, landscape features, trees, indigenous vegetation, patios, gazebos, and gardens can all be made to look like they not only fit together, but belong together. There is a vast multitude of fixture types and lamping options to consider when planning an outdoor garden lighting system, and there is a great deal of design than goes along with the selection of technology in order for the equipment to produce truly impressive results. Understanding a few key elements of design will help you conceptualize the basic steps toward the outcome more easily. It will also help you find the right professional sources for outdoor lights and design services and save you a great deal of time and money in the long run.
Take a less is more approach.
One thing to remember when choosing contemporary outdoor lights is that the lights themselves are not the most important element to the design. While this may sound odd, it really makes a great deal of sense when we consider the simple scientific fact that none of us actually see light itself—we see color. Your outdoor lighting system is intended to showcase the richness of color and form surrounding your home, not showcase itself. A large number of visible fixtures tends to overwhelm the property with obtrusive equipment and could result in complaints from your neighbors if the combined light output is too intense. You will also pay dearly for the overkill when the electric bill comes due.
On the other hand, a professional photometric analysis can show you exactly how much light you need and where. This will tell you in turn what outdoor light fixtures to actually purchase, and give you a general idea of where you should have them installed.
Conceal the fixtures.
In most cases it is not possible to literally conceal a light fixture completely. This is not necessary, anyway. All that is necessary is to conceal the fixtures enough from the viewer’s conscious awareness in order to point their attention to the object(s) being illuminated. This is something of a trick of the eye, as some would say, and often requires a professional consulting firm to help you achieve. Professional landscape lighting firms like Illuminations Lighting and Design have special training in fixture concealment, and they have access to commercial grade fixtures that are often smaller and more efficient than retail grade equipment.
It is fair to say, then, that whereas the actual number of fixtures is not the most important part of outdoor light design, the concealment and proper angle of fixtures certainly is.
Use energy efficient fixtures.
Almost every outdoor lighting concept you can imagine can be created using energy efficient fixtures. Both commercial outdoor lighting and outdoor home architectural lighting often rely heavily upon low voltage accent lights. These lights tend to be very safe to have in the yard around children and pets, and they of course consume far less electricity than line voltage fixtures. LED outdoor lights are also making an explosion in the marketplace, making it possible to decorate with everything from special effects and subtle shades of mood-altering color to bright floodlights for home security, outdoor path lighting or commercial property lighting.
Determine mount by subject illuminated and angle of incident.
Different outdoor lights feature different types of mounts. Some attach to the ground and shine up lighting onto trees, walls, and statuary. Others install in the trees themselves and create something akin to artificial moon light. Still others attach to the roofs of homes and office buildings and keynote important features that make the structure unique and aesthetically appealing.
Get a professional firm to help you.
These basic considerations point to a very important, ultimate consideration, that every homeowner has to make when investing in residential landscape lights. While lighting singular elements of a house, yard, patio, garden, or flower bed may be easy to do using retail grade fixtures and lamps, developing a continuity of themes between the various elements of a landscape and a house, along with saving energy and using fixtures that are built to last for a good number of years, takes a great deal of time and sometimes very sophisticated calculations.
It is also important that you realize that your community probably has, or will have very soon; dark sky laws that strictly regulate the type and level of lighting you can have around your home. Light pollution can be both a nuisance to neighbors and a safety hazard to motorists driving by. Working with a firm like ILD ensures that your equipment meets all energy and dark sky regulatory codes and that it is installed at the ideal angles of incidence to light your home and landscape as intended without violating legal restrictions on the equipment or its use.
Get a free consultation before you make any decisions.
If you live anywhere in Texas and need lighting in Houston, Beaumont, Austin, TX, or San Antonio areas, call Illuminations Lighting and Design before buying anything. We will provide you with a free consultation and a list of recommended outdoor light fixture and lamp types to best showcase the beauty and uniqueness of your property. If you move forward into a business relationship with us, understand that you are working with one of the most respected lighting design services company in the United States with 27 years of experience and expertise in five major service disciplines related to lighting, electrical services, and home automation.
Call us now at 1-800-963-1184 to get started. We are located in Houston but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.Labels: Independant Residential Electrical Contractor, Landscape Lighting Professional, Landscape Outdoor Lighting, Outdoor Lights
