A clear starry night invites you to set up your telescope and examine distant planets. Deck lighting on the steps and rails spares you from tripping in the dark. Once you’re ready, a simple tap on your phone’s smart lighting app dims the deck lights to give you the darkness you desire.
In countless ways like this, custom deck lighting lets you get the most out of your deck and backyard. Proper lighting achieves many goals, including safety, security, and the overall beautification of intimate outdoor living spaces.
Create An Inviting Outdoor Extension of Your Home
Decks are the gateway to our backyards. They are the spaces that deliver on the promise of curb appeal on the driveway side. Decks prove that the quality of the home is much more than skin deep.
Deck lighting serves that deep human need to gather near the light as day turns to night. You can continue to entertain your family or guests in the cool night air. You get to enjoy the satisfying sensation of watching dusk shift to night while embraced by the gentle reassuring glow of your surroundings.
Deck Lighting Strategies
With deck lighting, you integrate your outdoor and indoor living spaces. Lights produce this harmonious flow by illuminating:
- Outdoor dining spaces
- Steps
- Rails
- Planter boxes
- Specimen plants and hedges
- Spa and pool areas
- Fountains
- Paths and bridges
The unique features of your deck direct our choices about where lights should go, which fixtures are best suited to each application, and how they’ll be integrated into the overall design. At Night Owl Landscape Lighting, we promote safety while still preserving the beauty of your nighttime landscape. The subdued lighting of steps and rails lets you see where to put your feet but doesn’t limit your enjoyment of the stars or moon.
Types of Outdoor Lighting Fixtures
Just as you have many options for interior light fixtures, outdoor lights come in many shapes and styles, including:
- Spotlights
- Well lights
- Uplights
- LED strips
- Surface-mounted fixtures
- Flush-mounted fixtures
- Downlights
- Post cap and rail fixtures
- Balustrade light fixtures
LED strips and flush-mounted fixtures are especially well-suited for step and path lighting. Showing off specimen plants relies on the artful placement of up lights, well lights, or spotlights. Overhead lighting may be best achieved with downlights anchored to walls, eaves, or even trees. Specialty post cap, rail, and balustrade light fixtures subtly define the edges of a deck.
Create Perfect Outdoor Moments With Deck Lighting
Thoughtfully placed and easily adjustable deck lighting adds to the serenity of comfortable private moments and the enthusiasm of social gatherings. Consider how these scenarios could support the leisure and laughter that decks are meant to encourage.
Step lighting around a hot tub is important for safety, but few people want a bright porch light beaming down on them while they relax after hours. Low lighting around the edges of a spa sets the right mood and retains your privacy.
Adding lights to an outdoor dining area on your deck will form a cozy place for your family and friends to gather over food. Everyone feels comfortable in this haven of gentle light. As the evening shadows form, lighting on the planter boxes, rails, and steps leading to the house communicate a connection with the heart of the home.
You and your family gather on deck chairs with enough light to see each other and chat. You turn down the path lighting so that the backyard darkens, and little children can more easily see and chase fireflies.
Practical Matters
The right lighting elevates the form and function of your deck, but it’s about more than setting the mood. Lighting on your deck plays a pivotal role in safety and security. Beyond the obvious prevention of slips and falls, a well-lit deck late at night deters prowlers and thieves who prefer dark areas for prying at doors or windows.
Benefits of Professional Outdoor Lighting Design
We will attend to the design and installation. Our experience informs us how to select the proper fixtures for every aspect of your deck space. We will work with you to select stylish fixtures that suit your home’s architecture. We supply outdoor-ready hardware that can withstand the elements. Night Owl technicians are trained to build safe and accurate electrical systems that save power. To learn more about making your backyard beautiful after dark, contact us about deck lighting today.
Start maximizing the potential of your landscape
Wisconsin has such an abbreviated warm season. With professional landscape lighting, you extend the functionality of your outdoor spaces every day and year-round.
Night Owl is southern Wisconsin’s expert on landscape lighting. We offer only high-quality materials for professional LED landscape lighting systems and honest advice to maximize the potential of your outdoor spaces.
We’re a local, quality-focused specialist. Reach out and request a free estimate today.
