Landscape, Architectural, or Security Lighting: What Does Your Memphis Home Need?

Making smart outdoor lighting choices can help you to get the most out of your Memphis property, even during the nighttime hours. But the key to success is a smart outdoor lighting design. It’s easy to assume that outdoor lights in the yard are relatively simple to set up or arrange but this isn’t the case at all.

That’s why we’re talking about some outdoor lighting applications that will allow you to really maximize your use and enjoyment of your yard—along with your aesthetic appeal.

What Types of Outdoor Lighting Should You Consider?

There are three main types of outdoor lighting that can help you get more out of your Memphis home: landscape lighting, architectural lighting, and security lighting.

Each serves a slightly different purpose. Landscape lighting highlights the trees, gardens, and other natural features around your property. Architectural lighting draws attention to the details that make your home unique. Security lighting improves visibility around areas like driveways, walkways, entrances, and steps.

The best outdoor lighting designs often include a combination of all three. When these different types of lighting work together, they can make your home more beautiful, functional, and comfortable to enjoy after the sun goes down.

Here are a few outdoor house lighting ideas to consider as you begin planning your design..

1. Landscape Lighting Highlights Trees, Gardens, and Outdoor Spaces

Your plant material like trees, shrubs, flowers, and more are part of what makes your property aesthetically appealing and enjoyable. With the right landscape lighting, you’ll also be able to show these elements off after the sun goes down.

Landscape lighting is one that tends to get oversimplified. But it should be a lot more involved than just shining a spotlight on a tree or shrub that you really like. We can incorporate lights right into your plant beds, uplight a tree or shrub, or even use downlights to cast light on your lawn areas or pathways.

The best landscape lighting is artistic and subtle. We often say in these blog articles that with outdoor lighting “less is more,” but it’s an important mantra to remember. It’s often when lighting is overdone that it starts to lose its appeal.

Landscape lighting is best for homeowners who want to highlight trees, planting beds, pathways, gardens, or outdoor living areas after dark.

2. Architectural Lighting Accents Your Home’s Best Features

As far as great outdoor house lighting ideas, using architectural lighting to light some of the key architectural features of your home can add tremendous aesthetic appeal.

You can use architectural lighting to showcase some of the beautiful structural features of your home like stonework, columns, arches, and more.

We find that the best lighting helps to bring an outdoor space to life, even after the sun has gone down. In fact, these spaces often take on a whole new look in the evening hours. Lighting can create dramatic effects by casting shadows and finding beauty in the areas between the light and the dark.

Architectural lighting is best for emphasizing features such as columns, arches, stonework, rooflines, and textured exterior surfaces.

3. Security Lighting Improves Visibility Around Your Property

Finally, we believe that your home should always feel safe and lighting plays a huge contributing factor in that. Having well-lit outdoor spaces not only makes these areas safer to navigate (you can see where you are going!) but also helps to deter unwanted activity. 

Thoughtfully placed lighting can also reduce dark areas around entrances, side yards, and other parts of the property that may otherwise feel exposed.

That’s why when it comes to making lighting choices, you must also keep security lighting in mind. Security lighting is so much more than a spotlight or two.  Overly bright or poorly aimed fixtures can create glare, make it harder to see, and become a disturbance rather than an improvement.

Instead, you should focus on strategic areas that could pose trip and fall hazards. Having a well-lit driveway and well-lit pathways and steps is also important. You want your home to be safe to navigate for yourself and your visitors.

Security lighting is best used around entrances, driveways, walkways, steps, gates, and other areas where better visibility can make the property easier to navigate.

Which Type of Outdoor Lighting Is Best for Your Home?

We know that you came to this article to find out what type of outdoor lighting is best but the truth is, they’re all important and they all serve their place in a different way.

When it comes to truly getting the most out of your outdoor spaces, you don’t want to cut corners or feel like you were given a lighting scheme that somehow falls short.

At Mid South Outdoor Lighting & Audio, we know that outdoor lighting is more than just something that “looks nice.” While there’s no doubt it will add tremendous aesthetic appeal, it also brings functional value by allowing you to safely navigate and use your property at night. We’d go as far as saying that outdoor lighting is a “must-have” if you truly want to maximize everything about your outdoor spaces.

You can also explore our outdoor lighting project gallery for examples of how these applications can work together.

It simply doesn’t make sense to keep them in the dark!

If you’d like to talk more about outdoor house lighting ideas, we’re here to help. We want your outdoor lighting design to be everything that you desire.

Are you ready to create a secure, functional, and beautiful property at any hour of the day? If so, let’s meet and discuss some bright ideas.