Patio and Outdoor Living Lighting, What Makes an Outdoor Room Work After Dark|How to Light a Patio: The Practical Version|Outdoor Living Lighting Done Properly: A Homeowner's Guide

The back of the house has a different job

The front of a property gets judged from the street. The patio is a place you occupy. That flips most of the design rules. Nobody is grading the back yard from the street. What matters is whether the space still works after dark.The short version: the patio deserves its own plan. A roofline system handles the street view and very little for the space behind it. Two spaces, two separate sets of requirements to satisfy.

What actually drives people inside

The fastest way to make a patio feel wrong is a bright fixture in somebody's line of sight. A bare bulb at eye height makes everything behind it disappear, so the yard turns into a black wall. Aim for illumination without a visible bulb.

The overhead layer

The reason bistro and string lighting works so well outdoors is that they make a boundary. A patio without them has no top to it. With them it becomes an outdoor room. Keep them warm and low, every time.The good version is not the expensive version, it is the planned one, and the planning is the part that costs nothing.

Layers, roughly in order

Think of it as layers, not one fixture. Something overhead for general warmth. Something low for the steps, the edges and the path in. And a little accent on a tree or a wall. https://evercrestlighting.com/ Put them on separate controls if you can, because the dinner setting and the cleaning up setting are not the same.

Restaurants and businesses face this too

A restaurant patio is doing the same job for money. Bistro and string lighting across a patio is what keeps guests seated once the sun goes. Nothing changes technically. Only the reason does.

Lighting buys you months

An unlit patio has a usable season that ends when the days get short. With light, the hours stop being the limit. In the Upstate that is a real number of extra evenings, and almost all of them are dark by six. The lighting is the thing standing between a nice evening and an unused patio.

Insects

Outdoor light attracts things in the summer. Warmer light pulls in fewer of them, which conveniently matches what looks good anyway. It helps. It is not a solution. But it is a free consideration when choosing the setting.If a permanent system covers the rear elevation, set it warm and low for evenings outside, and the patio and the house agree.

Where to begin

Patio lighting gets designed by somebody standing on the patio, ideally after dark. EverCrest Lighting designs and installs patio and outdoor living lighting for residential and commercial properties across Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina, from Greenville. Consultations are free. Reach them at (864) 252-1732 or [email protected].

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