Tips to Make Your Home Safer & Beautify it at the Same Time
Landscape lighting is the perfect solution for making home security lights attractive. They also promote safety in your outdoor spaces. Let’s look at some inspiration photos from LUX Landscape Lighting projects for ideas that will be great for your property.
Landscape Lighting for Security
A dark house is an invitation to criminals and vandals. Look at this before photo:
If you can even see the house in this photo, it’s clear how easy it would be to sneak around anywhere on this property without being spotted. If the homeowners wanted to spend an evening on their front porch, it’s not the most secure environment, with darkness just around the corner. And if the homeowners went on vacation, this house might make a good candidate for a break-in.
Is the solution to put bright motion sensor lights in place? Or spotlight the corners? No way! That would look terrible and harsh. The better approach is to softly illuminate any dark areas, making being outdoors a pleasant experience for the homeowners. In the after photo, you see why criminals would no longer feel welcome at this property:
Another important tip for home security is to illuminate the front door and entryway area. We use indirect light, so you aren’t blinded when you open the front door. In the photo below, you see that any potential hiding places are turned into architectural features of interest instead.
You’ll also want to light up dark passageways, which offer hiding places. For this customer, we installed deck lights for this second-story walkway.
Making your house number visible at night would help first responders find your home in case of an emergency (and will also help guests who are visiting your house for a nice gathering).
Landscape Lighting for Safety
These outdoor lighting ideas will help you and your guests navigate your property safely at night. We’ll focus on these areas:
- Pathways
- Change in elevation
- Around obstacles
Landscape Lighting for Pathways
Pathways include your driveway, sidewalks and paths around your property. You certainly don’t want any cars hitting this wall as they back up in the dark:
Because of the loose gravel, this beautiful path might trip people up a little at night. Carefully-placed path light reduce the tripping hazard.
This uneven area is charmingly natural, but could be a little dangerous after the sun sets. Fortunately, this customer can keep their rustic feel without risking a fall.
Landscape Lighting for Changes in Elevation
It’s especially important to illuminate any changes in elevation that people may navigate, which includes both stairs and slopes. Deck lighting leads up the steps to this second-story area.
The below pathway and stairs may be challenging to navigate even in daylight! The zig-zag handrail is illuminated at the points where you might run into them, and the spiral staircase isn’t left in the dark.
The steps below are delightful and truly blend in with the garden setting. Adding landscape lighting means this homeowner can enjoy an evening garden stroll without a tumble down the stairs.
Landscape Lighting around Obstacles
There are also possible obstacles that could present safety hazards in the dark, such as open flame, open water or sharp corners. Provide hardscape lighting around fire pits and pools to improve visibility in these potentially-unsafe areas. This pool area is made much safer with landscape lighting. In the dark, someone could walk right into it without noticing (until they fell in, of course).
In the picture below, the low bench around the fire pit would be a tripping hazard without hardscape lighting. Imagine banging your shin on that corner– ouch!
Let LUX Landscape Lighting help you imagine beautiful safety and security solutions for your property. Check out our video “Home Security Lights? Landscape Lighting is the Answer” and contact us for a trouble-free quote.
Leave A Comment