In 5 Simple Steps, You Can Design Your Own Landscape Lighting Fixtures

The best way to make your home’s exterior more dramatic, beautiful, and alluring at night is with landscape lighting. Here are five steps to help you create eye-catching and functional designs for your landscape lighting fixtures when the sun sets.

Sketch Out Your Landscape Design Concepts

Observe the landscape at all hours of the day and night in order to identify the most interesting features: Oak trees, palms, and juniper bushes form a symbiotic relationship.

A stone wall with fine travertine capstones, a carefully crafted facade, or even water features can be included in the surrounding hardscape.

These are all excellent examples of landscape focal points that you can use as a guide. These are the landscape’s most prominent features and the landscape’s first level of illumination.

Modern exterior lighting can then be selected for other areas of the landscape, such as

walkways through a garden, deck and porch areas, and driveways, once the focal points have been established.

In this next step, draw a design

After that, it’s time to begin work on a landscape drawing.

To begin, draw a circle around the garden, and then add any significant structures, decks, benches, trees, shrubs, or other plant life you can think of.

Step 1’s focal points and their approximate heights and lengths should be highlighted. Make use of any existing landscape lighting sources that may be present.

Choosing between 120V and 12V landscape lighting systems will be easier with this information.

Choose Your Landscape Lighting Fixtures in the Third Step

Choosing the right fixtures for each area of your application is essential. These are the two most important questions to consider? Do you already have a system of outdoor lighting in place? as well as: How big is my design?

Decorative, flood, and landscape lighting by WAC. Lighting can be controlled in terms of color, beamwidth, and brightness, but we’ll get into that in a second.

Solid die-cast brass and k-alloy aluminum are the materials of choice for WAC Lighting’s 120V and 12V landscape lighting systems.

For coastal and marine environments, solid brass dies castings are available for additional corrosion protection. The following factors should be taken into account when deciding between 120V and 12V:

Installing galvanized conduit for 120V wiring in most places requires a minimum depth of six feet below the surface, which is expensive and time-consuming.

Only if there is an existing 120V infrastructure in your landscape or if the fixtures are going to be installed near an outdoor receptacle can you use 120V for your landscape lighting.

All other layouts should use a 12V low voltage landscape lighting system supplied by a central power source.

It’s important to know where and when to use the various landscape lighting fixtures listed below:

• Lighting for the Path and the Area

Ideal for adding a new dimension to your home by illuminating walkways and making them safe and welcoming for guests.

• Lights for Indicators

Highlights the edges of a deck or patio with a contrasting color. For example, indicator lights can also be used to highlight the perimeter of a driveway or a landscaping area.

• Spotlights and Accent Lights

Using spotlights for uplighting or downlighting can achieve dramatic results or a more subdued atmosphere. In addition to illuminating trees, these fixtures can also be used to illuminate garden structures and specific architectural elements such as porch columns and eaves.

• Fixtures for the Hardscape

When designing an outdoor kitchen or a stacked masonry wall or handrail or bench, consider using low-profile Hardscape fixtures.

These durable linear fixtures can be easily hidden under architectural and landscape features like columns or posts or window ledges.

Water features such as ponds, wells, and backyard streams can be illuminated by submersible lights.

• Wall Washing

A Wall Wash is a small, portable light source that can be used to illuminate a variety of surfaces, such as building facades, fences, and garden walls.

• Lights Installed in the Ground

It’s ideal for illuminating a tall tree or a long driveway.

• Step/Deck/Patio/Indicator deck-light

Outdoor entertainment areas with a lot of foot traffic should be illuminated.

Fixture Spacing

Most landscape lighting products have 6 feet of lead wire that can be used for final adjustments in the field.

Landscape lighting fixtures are listed below, along with a general idea of how far apart they should be spaced:

Indicator Lights of Different Types

Make sure the space between the perimeter borders is at least 2 feet.

• Lighting for the Path and the Area

Keep a minimum of ten feet between each path and each spotlight. Remember that the purpose of these lights is to point users in the right direction, not to provide complete illumination of the path.

• Wall Washing

These should be placed between 1 and 2 feet away from the wall to create a uniform glow. Set them at a distance of 6-8 ft.

• Spotlights and Accent Lights

Large trees with multiple viewing angles and large canopies may need as many as four fixtures for full lighting. The WAC Lighting Accent & Spotlight’s beam angle and lumen output can be adjusted on the ground. 

• Step/Deck/Patio/Indicator

Outdoor entertainment areas with a lot of foot traffic should be illuminated.

• Fixtures for the Hardscape

Short, tight areas can be illuminated with a 3-inch strip; larger strips can be used to illuminate deck handrails, retaining walls and step railings. Larger sizes can be used in situations where more light is needed.

Final Layout and Wire Runs are covered in this step.

Finalize your landscape lighting design by implementing the concepts you’ve sketched out. If you opt for a 12V low-voltage system, you’ll almost certainly need multiple runs of wire to connect the transformer to all of the outdoor lighting fixtures.

A single power source can power your entire landscape lighting system, whether it’s in a dry, wet, or even underwater area. The majority of transformers can be connected to a standard wall outlet by simply plugging them in.

Select a transformer with a maximum wattage capacity of 75 to 600 watts depending on the length of the fixture runs and the number of fixtures in your project.

Planting trees and adding garden features can be highlighted with additional landscape fixtures without having to change your current set-up, so it’s a good idea to leave room for growth. Landscape lighting should be automatically controlled by a timer or photocell based on the time of day.

For low voltage or line voltage systems, your landscape lighting will be powered by energy-efficient LEDs from Landscape Improvements that use the most advanced technologies. Aesthetics and security go hand in hand with our LED Landscape Lighting. Don’t forget to check out our outdoor lighting ideas if you need any more inspiration.