An extensive low-voltage lighting scheme for a new home

A new house is the easiest time to light a property and the easiest time to get it wrong, because there is nothing yet to tell you where the eye should go.

Lighting is the one part of a landscape that only exists for half the day, and it is the half most people are actually home for.

The approach

We start with a consultation on the property itself. Outdoor lighting has to answer three things at once, beauty, function and security, and the design that comes out of it works on a handful of principles: seamless transitions between lit areas, varied light levels that lead the eye rather than flooding everything, depth, balance across the whole scene, focal points, and a sense of direction.

Get that right and a visitor never notices the fixtures. They notice that the place feels finished.

What we built

An extensive low-voltage scheme across the grounds, in top-tier solid brass. Brass is what we specify because it is what survives a Pennsylvania winter and twenty years of sprinklers, and it is why we can put a lifetime warranty on the fixtures with no questions asked.

The result

The owners describe an end product that far exceeded their expectations. Lighting is the smallest line item on most projects and reliably the one people talk about most afterwards.