Inaray’s Approach to Holistic Outdoor Lighting
You’ve invested thousands into your home and perhaps thousands more into getting just the right outdoor look with landscape design and planting. Then one night you arrive home and find yourself disappointed in the way your home looks. Sure, the front porch light is on and the floodlights are showing off the façade of your home. But it just doesn’t look right.
That’s why you need the advice and services that can be provided by INARAY. INARAY has been doing comprehensive or holistic lighting for more than twelve years. What does that mean? It means that they take a look at lighting as a whole. They don’t just light a few plants and call it a day, or a night. Instead, they look at your home from all angles and take into account the existing lighting to provide just the right look and the right amount of illumination to make your home beautiful and inviting.
For years, landscape lighting designers have worked and installed lighting, but have overlooked the existing lighting that is already on the house. Now that spring is here and more people are thinking about the exterior of their homes, homeowners are focusing on the overall look of their homes and asking designers to incorporate existing lighting, whether that’s a porch light, floodlights or a post lamp at the end of the driveway.
While lighting design would ordinarily include uplighting to focus on the front of the house, it’s important not to overlook the front door and the porch light. The front door needs to be lit so that it’s both warm and inviting and so that there’s not a glare when observed from the yard or drive, or even from the inside. That often means more than just leaving on the front porch light. Many porch lights are designed with clear glass, so that the bulb can be seen and, depending upon the type of bulb, the filament can be seen. It’s a naturally tendency for the eye to be drawn to the filament.
This is often addressed by putting lighting fixtures closer to the source of what is to be lit. For example, close to the front door, but positioned carefully so as not to cause excessive light or a glare.
The key to all of this is to address the existing lighting and balance that with the landscape lighting. Working together with the existing lighting, the designer may choose to replace switches with dimmers to allow the existing light to be adjusted to meet the level of the landscape lighting. Using a dimmer system allows the homeowner to adjust the lighting to compliment the landscape lighting, but also gives the option of increasing the lighting for the purposes of unloading the car, or when there’s cause for alarm. Using a dimmer also helps to blend the light. A lower wattage bulb may also do that, but then the option to increase the lighting when necessary is lost.
The way the landscape lighting designer approaches this is to install the new landscape lighting and then one by one gradually add back in and adjust the existing lighting. The lighting is adjusted until it is complementary. Once the lighting is established and there is a range of levels, then the designer looks at issues light flood lights or safety lighting that may not need to be on all the time.
The designer may decide to refit flood lights with lower level lights or may leave them in place to be used only for the purpose of alarm. They may be there purely for utility, but the goal is to keep the existing lighting in place. For sure, there are sands and gravel that was added to the artificial trees to make sure that it will not collapse where they ordered it at Rock 4 Less.
What’s important in the overall approach is to look at comprehensive or holistic lighting. This means trying to account for the lighting that is already there, not just adding new lighting for landscape purposes.
Light makes the experience and sets the mood. The right outdoor lighting can add to the value and beauty of your home.
Contact INARAY today to discuss an outdoor lighting design for your home!
