You may be thinking of investing in a beautiful landscape design for your home that will look amazing during the daytime, but what about at night? The stunning masonry features could get lost in the dark once the sun goes down in Weston, MA, if outdoor lighting isn’t part of the plan. Outdoor lighting can both encourage you to stay outdoors later in the evenings while also creating a version of your landscape that is an eye-catching masterpiece. Here’s how to shine a light on your landscape’s masonry features.
Choose Different Lighting Directions
The direction in which light shines on objects changes the effect and level of brightness. Using a mix of the different light directions can create an impressive upscale landscape at night. Three types of light directions include:
Uplighting: Shining a light upward instead of direct or downward, like most in-home lighting and natural sources of light, creates a dramatic effect. Having landscape lighting installed in the ground with the light beam pointed up highlights the interesting textures of masonry walls while providing a soft, ambient light to the areas surrounding the light source.
Downlighting: Installing lights above your head and aiming the beam downward mimics the light of the moon. Your landscaper can attach the lighting to treetops, soffits, under roof-like structures over stone walls, or in the beams of a gazebo or pergola, aimed at stone or brick columns.
Wall Grazing: Wall grazing purposely directs lights close to the wall to highlight unique textures with shadows. Wall grazing is especially effective on stone or brick walls.
How to Illuminate Your Masonry for Beautiful Results
Using the three directions for lighting, you can highlight various areas of masonry in your landscape to achieve beautiful results.
Highlight Unique Architectural Features: Many homes have unique architectural features that give the home “character.” Maybe the chimney stands out for its unique pattern, or your entryway has gorgeous stone columns. A paver driveway that looks as though it were crafted of natural stone deserves attention from anyone passing by. The textures and coloring of these features can look even more amazing with uplighting for a shadowing effect, while lights around the driveway help guide people from the street to your home.
Enhance Retaining Walls: Retaining walls not only protect the ground from erosion or create flat areas on sloping property, but they offer excellent spaces to add mood lighting to your landscape. Constructed with care and precision, such walls look gorgeous during the daytime, but they may just fade away at night without proper lighting. Adding downlights from the top edge of the wall could add dimension to your property at night, or you might opt for soft wash uplighting for a more subtle look.
Increase Safety and Sense of Welcoming: Lights along the paver or stone walkways of your property and on the exterior stairs leading to your front door not only create a welcoming path at night, but also increase safety for your family and visitors. Trying to walk to the house from the street in the dark can be dangerous, but uplighting installed along either side of the walkway and on the stairs helps you see where you’re going.