Creative Landscape Lighting: A Neighborhood Well Lit: English Cottage-Style Home - Part 8
Landscape lighting has the ability to mold your mood if used properly throughout the landscape. Landscape lighting, to me, lets your guests know that they are welcome and leads them to your front door. The landscape lighting at The Retreat at Kennesaw Mountain goes above and beyond this ideal. The ENTIRE neighborhood is lit with landscape bullet floods secured amongst the arbor umbrella to set the mood from high above and the neighborhood entrance lighting is optimized for security and beauty. It's mood light that's just right. It was well planned and works to perfection.
Read on for a few helpful links for your landscape lighting project and lots more images of a professional installation at The Retreat at Kennesaw Mountain...
My pre-dawn commute takes me by The Retreat so I enjoy taking the time to look over and see the neighborhood entrance lighting that Bonner Custom Homes has put together to make The Retreat at Kennesaw Mountain something truly special for the homeowners and their guests.
Lighting From High Above
I counted 17 trees with landscape bullet floods lining the short route around the neighborhood with light that showcases the true beauty of Mother Nature's living monuments. With spring upon us now, I've had the opportunity to observe how it looks with, and without, leaves on the trees. Personally, I enjoy the canopy flood view sans leaves. I've always preferred the limb structure and bark textures that are much more apparent during the winter months. Leaves simply soften the overall appearance of trees and give it a smoother structure, aesthetically speaking.
As you can see in the images I've provided they also add a bounty of color. The contrasting colors of the cypress and Japanese maple foliage are magnified with the feature lights used in this application. There are several more entrance lights in addition to the landscape floods. There are 3 floods focusing on the gate, several lights that feature individual "specimen" trees and 2 spotlights (1 happened to be burned out at the time the photograph was taken) focusing on the inscribed subdivision nameplate.
It is elegantly understated, if that makes any sense. I don't think my photos do justice to how it looks with the naked eye but you can judge for yourself.
More landscape lighting images below...
Related landscape lighting links:
- HGTV Landscape Lighting Tips
- LowVolt Lighting Forum (scroll down)
- HomeCenter com lighting tips
- EC&M ezine Fundamentals of Low Voltage Lighting Technique
- Outdoor Lighting Perspective lighting tips
If you find this article interesting, you may want to check out the whole series of posts on the English-cottage style home that's being built in this neighborhood and all of the beautiful craftsmanship and materials that go into constructing it.
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Stephen...
I've considered your question, but only for a moment...and then I began to think about it.
No, I don't have any photos of night time illumination of actual homes. Usually, landscape lighting is installed on properties after a homeowner moves into a new home, although the English cottage home will be an exception, so in order for me to have some night photos I'd have to set up my camera & tripod outside of someone's home. That might look like...well..."house stalking" to some folks. I don't think I've got the nerve to do that. House stalking of new homes (when nobody has moved in yet) is basically what I like to do as a hobby...but mostly in the daytime so don't look for any night photos from me anytime soon...just daylight photos. Sorry.
Do you have any night-time photos of actual homes showing how homes are lit? I'm thinking about installing some lighting and I'd like to get some ideas.