How to Strategize Walking Path Lighting For your Home

What is Walking Path Lighting and What are the Benefits?

Staying true to its name, walking path lighting is a feature used by homeowners to illuminate and guide guests along designated pathways on your property during the evening. Generally speaking, these types of lights allow you to subtly illuminate these pathways with the use of uplighting light fixtures without creating a harsh result that is unappealing.

However, contrary to popular belief, walking path lighting does have other benefits besides providing you with visibility and safety while walking around your property. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits below:

•   Helps improve your home’s security system
•   Aids in marking visible boundaries on your property
•   Can help protect gardens that surround your pathways from being stepped on by guests
•   They can provide a beautiful highlight on surrounding garden features
•   Enhances the overall ambient lighting on your property
•   The majority of path lighting is solar powered, making them environmentally friendly and cost-effective solutions

Tips to Maximize the Path Lighting for Your Home

If you’re looking to optimize the lighting on the pathways located around your exterior property, take a look at some of these unknown tips and tricks.

• To create beautiful pools of light throughout your paths, try spacing each light fixture 5 to 10 feet apart while keeping the illumination subtle and warm
• Rather than choose uplighting on the sides of your pathways, opt for a downlight fixture to direct the light towards ground, rather than up towards you
• Rather than over light your path and walkways around your property, try using subtle lighting that is dimmer and more muted
• Rather than use lighting directly on the sides of your walkways, place them further away to illuminate both the pathway and surrounding gardens or landscape features
• Alternate your lighting fixtures on either side of your pathway to create a beautiful balance in lighting and visual interest along the walkway
• In addition to lighting pathways, try using uplighting or downlighting features along staircases
• Try playing with cooler and warmer light bulbs
• Make note of your chosen lighting features height in comparison to the surrounding plants and landscaping. Make sure to make them slightly taller than the garden so they do not become muted and too dim
• Try opting for path lighting that has built in dimming features so you can manually set the ambience

What are the Types of Pathway Lights You Can Use?

Now that we’ve filled you in on the benefits of pathway lighting and some of our best kept tips and tricks to help you maximize your exterior property, let’s take a closer look at the various types of pathways lighting available.

Step Lighting

Step lighting is used to ensure people do not miss steps during the evening and are typically placed on the walls besides the steps.

Step Riser Lighting

Step riser lighting is generally installed on the walls beside stairs or in the risers of a staircase to illuminate the steps themselves by directing light outward.

Downlighting

While downlighting is typically installed on the higher points of your home’s exterior, they can also be strategically placed in trees to illuminate pathways as well. With downlighting, you can create a stunning moonlight effect that provides a soft glow on a large portion of the pathway itself without being overwhelming and harsh. 

Bollard Lighting

Bollard lighting is a type of pillar lighting that provides 360-degree illumination. Unlike other lights, bollard lighting provides a brighter source of light along pathways. 

Flush Lighting

Flush lighting is a type of light fixture that is installed into or beside the walkway for a beautiful integrated result that is extremely practical and trendy.

Additional Tips for Pathway Lighting

While there are several types of pathway lighting you can choose for your property, don’t be afraid to play with different types and choose a style that matches your interior design for a beautiful and seamless transition from the outdoors all the way into your home. Additionally, homeowners can also style their walkway with lights that complement the architectural appeal of their home as well to enhance the overall ambience and curbside aesthetic.

For example, if you’re looking to achieve a more modern result, choose pathway lights that are minimalistic with straight, crisp lines. On the other hand, if you’re wanting to achieve more of a traditional curbside appeal, try opting for a lantern light fixture instead. Additionally, you can also select different colors and materials for your pathway lights that can also help you achieve your desired design look. For example, chromes, whites, and blacks are a great way to achieve a contemporary appeal. In contrast, for a more conventional styling, try selecting black, silvers, or copper materials.

Furthermore, when it comes to scaling your pathway lights, it is best to find balance when illuminating areas of your property. Therefore, rather than putting too much light along the path itself, play around with spacing to avoid overcrowding.

The Bottom Line: Walking Path Lighting

As you can see, walking path lighting is a great way to increase your home's security, enhance the safety for your family and guests when walking at night, and boost your curbside appeal. This in turn, can provide you with an increase in the overall property value for your home as well. Therefore, rather than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on revamping the entire exterior of your home, you can easily enhance its ambience with simple lighting features to create beautiful foal points.

To learn more about how you can optimize your exterior pathway lighting, head over to our main page for more details and information on how we can help you achieve the curbside appeal of your dreams. 

Need more information?

Phone: 770-521-2805
Email:  Contact@AbulousLighting.com