Spring Home Improvement: Transform Your Property into a Resort with Landscape Lighting

Provided by: ARA

(ARA) - Spring: The season when homeowners start thinking about barbecues, pool parties, water gardens and landscaping. With all that outdoor activity, it's no wonder they're also planning ways to make the back yard more attractive.

Landscape lighting is one of the most dramatic improvements you can make to your home -- front yard or back.

"People are attracted to light and its soothing effect on their surroundings. Lighting is a key way to maximize your enjoyment of your property," says Curtis Hogan, President of Nite Time Decor, Inc. "It also increases the value of your home and adds another level of security for your family."

Few homeowners realize that proper outdoor lighting can expand the living space when viewed from windows inside the house. The right choice or placement of lighting fixture can also create a tranquil -- even romantic ambience. Nite Time Decor, the outdoor lighting experts, offers these eight tips on how to create that soothing feeling with landscape lighting:

1. Use different levels of light to create a focal point. A common mistake is to light everything with equal brightness, creating an airport runway effect.
2. Highlight the beautiful accents in your yard. Experts know how to use various design techniques including up lighting, shadowing, moonlighting and silhouetting to achieve specific effects when lighting a canopy of trees, statues, gazebos, water fountains and plants.
3. Use indirect lighting. Let's say you want to light an unattractive concrete walkway. Rather than using path lighting, you can light up the surrounding trees and the "spill" will illuminate the walkway.
4. Think about multiple viewing angles. Make sure your lighting is aesthetically pleasing from indoors and out. Otherwise, glare can interfere with the effect you're trying to achieve.
5. Take your plant materials into account. Different plants require different tactics. For example, pine trees require more light than ash or birch trees.
6. Ensure that the voltage is correct. Voltage diminishes (and lighting dims) as you move farther from the source. Lighting experts use transformers and special wiring techniques to increase voltage for more distant fixtures.
7. Don't try to do it yourself. It's impossible to achieve an elegant lighting effect from a box. In addition, with DIY lighting set-ups, water and dirt get into connections, and lights often go out within a year.
8. aintain your outdoor lighting at least twice a year. Your yard is a dynamic environment where trees grow and change shape. Lawn maintenance crews tend to hit fixtures, and lenses become dirty.

"Nite Time Decor offers a maintenance program that keeps outdoor lighting systems looking just as good as the day they were installed," notes Hogan. "Connections are the weakest link in any lighting system -- we take particular care of each connection, greasing them and crimping them for a solid link. We also replace burned out lamps, adjust fixture positioning, clean lenses and check the voltage and amperage to maintain the integrity of the system."

To create that soothing, romantic ambience, find a Nite Time Decor service provider in your area by visiting www.nitetimedecor.com.

Nite Time Decor is the professional outdoor lighting expert with the know-how to use sophisticated lenses and louvers to establish the desired lighting effects and create a true backyard retreat. Nite Time Decor can install and maintain a sophisticated landscape lighting system to turn a residential home into a personal resort.

Courtesy of ARA Content