Does your outdoor area need a facelift?
Outdoor lighting can transform a space from average to amazing overnight. It highlights the best features of your garden, sets the mood for entertaining and helps make outdoor spaces more accessible and safe. If you’re thinking about getting outdoor lighting installed at your home, check out our 8 Steps for the Perfect Outdoor Lighting.
Outdoor lighting falls into 2 main categories, landscape lighting and building lighting. The best outdoor lighting designs will incorporate both types into the design to create a seamless outdoor environment to be enjoyed year round! Here are the 10 main lighting options for transforming your outdoor living areas and gardens.
Landscape Lighting
Garden Lights
Garden lights provide ambience and create an inviting atmosphere so you can get better use from your outdoor space. These lights usually have a wider beam angle of 60 degrees or more. This creates large pools of light to illuminate scenery (rather than a particular feature). Some examples of garden lights include spot lights, bollard lights and submersible pond lights. You can also choose larger pole lights (think of the Narnia-style lamp post). These are less common nowadays but they can suit older traditional homes and add a sense of grandeur.
Feature Lights
Do you have a particular feature in your garden that you’d like to draw attention to? It might be an established tree, a statue, a pond, or an interesting piece of architecture on your home. Feature lights usually have a tighter beam angle of between 20-60 degrees, so feature lighting creates a focal point that attracts your eyes. When layered with other garden lights, these feature lights add depth and interest to your landscape lighting design. Consider incorporating strip lighting for a sleek outline or garden spike lights for focused illumination. For sustainable options, solar lights can enhance the ambiance. Exploring various outdoor lighting ideas ensures you achieve the correct balance and highlight your garden's beauty.
Path Lights
Path lights are an essential part of landscape lighting. They help visitors to navigate pathways or steps in your garden, and prevent many twisted ankles or trampled flowerbeds. They also help to increase the overall security of your property, as there will be less dark patches where unwanted guests could hide.
Stair Lights
Stair lights go hand in hand with path lights and they are very helpful if you have outdoor stairs on your property. Stair lights can either go under the steps or on the wall next to stairs. They look great and help improve safety around stairs at night.
Pool Lights
Pool lighting is a must if you have a pool. Pool lighting allows you to safely use your pool at night and the effect even a single pool light can create is spectacular thanks to the refraction of the light through the water. Nowadays with LED light fittings you can even get colour changing pool lights which are great feature for pool parties. Pool lights must be installed when the pool is being built so keep this in mind if you are planning on building a pool. If you have an old pool light that you want to upgrade, this can usually be done but check with your local pool shop for specific advice.
Deck Lights
Australians love our decks and deck lighting is a great outdoor lighting option. Deck lights are a type of uplight that are recessed into the deck. They look great when they are installed next to pillars or posts so the light shines up the pillars and onto the roof. Deck lights can be a simple warm white spotlight or they can even be colour changing. Deck lights also look great around swimming pools and outdoor eating areas. The same type of light can also be installed on tiled or paved areas if you get the wiring in place before you tile/pave.
Building Lighting
Wall Lights
Wall lights are generally used to modestly illuminate an area. Enough to make it safe to traverse, but not bright enough to make it feel like you’re in a spotlight. They have a wide beam angle so they provide a good distribution of light in all directions. Types of wall lights include bunker lights and step lights. There are a huge variety of wall light styles to choose from, so you’re sure to be able to match the aesthetics of your home.
Up-Down Lights
Typically used at entryways, up-down lights are a type of wall light that cast light in 2 directions. They provide ambient light for safety around steps and pathways, while also creating a nice lighting effect at your entrance. Up-down lights generally only shine light in an upwards and downwards direction, so aren’t the best choice if you need direct light to an area.
Spot Lights
Spot lights are a brighter option that are used to light up certain areas from above. They can be used to light up driveways or as a feature light on large trees. They have a narrow beam angle so the light doesn’t spread too far. So they are good for lighting up pathways along fences where you don’t want to annoy your neighbours by shining light into their windows. Spot lights can be fixed or adjustable depending on what you would like to achieve.
Flood Lights
Flood lights are bright, wide angle lights that are used to illuminate large areas, such as a whole garden or a carpark. These lights will overpower any other landscape lighting in the space, so are best used sparingly when you need the brightest option.
Downlights
Downlights can also be used outdoors in areas like carports, alfresco decks with a ceiling, eaves and entryways. Outdoor areas do not need to be as brightly lit as indoor spaces and downlights can be quite bright, so make sure not to over-do the number of downlights being installed. Smaller spot downlights are another option that are less bright and work well in eaves. But be careful of disturbing old eaves during installation as many Australian homes built prior to the 1980s will likely have asbestos eaves! Make sure to use a professional electrician who you can trust not to disturb asbestos on your property.
Product Spotlight – Havit Tivah range
The Havit Tivah range has an extensive range of lighting options that can be used throughout your landscape lighting design to create a common theme throughout the garden. Designed by Havit, this product range is premium quality with a sleek, timeless design. The architectural look suits a wide range of homes, and comes in a wide variety of colour options (titanium, silver, white, matt black, copper, antique brass). The Tivah range also comes in 316 marine grade stainless steel which is recommended for coastal regions.
Havit is “committed to be consistently improving our environmental policies, giving you more energy efficient lighting year by year with a modern, timeless design for both indoor and outdoor setting”.
The Tivah range includes the following outdoor lighting products:
- Spot lights – single, twin
- Pillar lights
- Up-down lights
- Spike lights – single or twin, various heights
- Bollard lights
For more information on the Havit Tivah range, visit the Havit website.
Get your outdoor lighting installed
That brings us to the end of our outdoor and garden lighting ideas. From string lights and hanging lights, to stunning garden recessed lights, you find your best outdoor lighting solution with us!
For reliable service and quality workmanship, get in touch with Kenner Electrics. We can advise you on the best choice for your outdoor lighting and find a solution that fits your needs. Our fully qualified electricians will think about all the technical requirements of the job, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy your space!
