February 01, 2012

Shed a Little Light

So, last night I went home and someone (who shall go nameless) had pulled some solar landscape lighting from the box where we had packed it from the old house. He had taken the four lights and put one in the hanging tomato planter (?), then, placed three within three inches of each other and about five feet from the edge of the patio. Considering that my back yard is about 100 x100, the “cluster” of lights looked like a small iceberg in a sea of black (let’s not even discuss the tomato planter).

Let’s talk about the opportunity of illuminating the casual or not so casual exterior of your home. Given the average temperature of the River Region, you can use outdoor space for a majority of the year. Your patio is like another room of the house. You cook, eat, entertain, and just plain relax there. So why would you not set it up for those wonderful mild evenings that are so prevalent in our area?

Garden Guru says, “When you’re trying to come up with great patio lighting ideas you need to first take into account the size of your patio. How many lights will it actually take for the patio to be lit? Also think about what type of mood you want to set and what you are going to be using your patio for. If you’re planning on having romantic dinners the lighting that you’ll want to install will be much different than if you were planning on reading or setting up an outdoor bar. If you are planning on installing a bar, the outdoor bar guide is a great resource for setup and lighting options. Once you’ve decided what level and color of light that you want, you can move on to installing the light fixtures.” They go on to discuss the different types of patio lighting fixtures for your home which include torches, embedded lighting, mounted lights and post lights(my personal fav), wall lights and holiday lighting.

In my personal search for the covered patio lighting of my home, I found a really cool battery operated (yep battery operated!) chandelier for the patio. Prices for the different sizes that I found ranged from $25.00 up to $90.00. These means no additional wiring etc. and you can make it more formal on a whim!

There is yet another lighting opportunity for the exterior of your home. I recently stumbled on lighted planters. This is not the typical form of lighting but for houses with formal gardens and large spaces you may consider the planters as another source of light for your entertaining. I found these at Certified Lighting and thought I would share.

If you are considering putting your house on the market don’t forget to accent this area so that people do think of it as extension of your home! Check out this home for sale at 8306 Chadburn Way, listed by Lisa Lynn with Alfa Realty. It has a great covered patio for entertaining!

Posted by: Denise Haviland