Days are getting shorter as winter nears and as night sets in earlier, your house begins to feel increasingly gloomy and dark. As you approach your home at the end of the workday, the sun – formerly dancing off of bright flowers and verdant lawns – is gone. Welcome to winter in Kansas City.
But there is a solution: Brighten up your home’s facade with beauty and grace courtesy of “Nightscaping” from Heinen Landscape. With Nightscaping from Heinen you’ll enjoy seeing your home (often a family’s largest investment) majestically bathed in warm tones of light as you pull into the drive after a long day of work.
Imagine how pleasant it would be to drive up to the beautiful home you’ve invested so much in and seeing all of its architectural features tastefully lit up. And, as an added benefit, your home will be much more visible to friends and family who stop by for an evening visit.
Don’t forget the added security Nightscaping brings to your home. Numerous studies have shown that dark homes are a prime target for robberies and other criminal activity. But with your home’s exterior effectively lit, you’ll sleep easy knowing your home and family are secure. If you travel often for business and leave loved ones at home, or if you’re planning extended weekend trips or long vacations, you’ll feel better knowing you have an automatic Nightscaping System to help fend off intruders.
There are a variety of methods to to consider in lighting your home’s exterior. One of the best ways to begin the process is to develop initial ideas based on viewing examples of installed Nightscaping systems on homes similar to your own. Heinen Landscape works with FX Luminaire, one of the leading manufacturers of exterior lighting solutions in the country. Here are a few ideas and (with photos courtesy of FX Luminaire) to take into consideration as you consider your system. Take a look and feel free to call Heinen for a no-obligation estimate.
Expanding Nighttime Living Space
When it comes to lighting outdoor spaces, most tend to think of simply illuminating the exterior of a structure or property. One of the most underestimated aspects of landscape lighting is that it can actually extend living space physically as well as visually.
When light is brought to a dark back or front yard, it visually pushes the boundaries of a house. The more elements that are lit, the more people will push the edges of where a person will tend to gravitate to beyond the interior of a house. Pushing this boundary creates a visually striking look for the outside of the house, especially when the interior lights are turned off.
Boundary Lighting![Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 8.35.31 AM]()
Another practice for expanding nighttime living space is boundary lighting. Many people have a fence or shrub line that represents the end of their property line. This section can be illuminated with a small output wall-wash fixture. When done properly using “photometrics” more than one light can be overlapped to create a continuous wall of light that will subtly show the edges of a yard.
Plan for the outside as well as the inside
In the process of designing a new lighting plan, remember to include what will happen on the inside of the house, especially in the main areas that look outward. If the living or dining room is in the back of the house, shifting the balance of the entire lighting plan to better represent the most trafficked areas often has great visual effect. Opposite to this, if the bedroom is in a particular area that has multiple windows, the design requires extra care not to put too much light into that area.
Don’t spend another minute in the dark. Heinen’s experienced Nightscaping teams have completed exterior lighting projects with homeowners from Mission Hills, Fairway and Leawood to Overland Park, Mission and Roeland Park. Let Heinen help you get the most out of your home investment, add security while your away, extend the beauty of your home to 24-hours a day and – be the Nightscaping talk of your own neighborhood with your beautifully lit home from Heinen Landscape!