Keeping up with your home's exterior and landscape can require a substantial investment year-after-year. This includes purchasing trees, shrubs, and flowers which add texture and color to increase your homes curb appeal. Adding hardscapes, from patios to natural stone work. Mulching almost every year to freshen your landscape beds and add definition. Edging your landscape beds, driveways and sidewalks to keep the grass from over-growing. Spending countless hours picking weeds and raking up leaves. You may have even spent the money to have an irrigation system installed and continue to invest in maintaining your lawn to keep the grass green and healthy during our hot dry summers. However, properly illuminating our homes exterior is often overlooked. Have you considered adding landscape lighting to extended your hours enjoying your outdoor living space?

We've all driven down the road and had different homes catch our eye. It could be a beautiful landscape, or maybe it’s the texture or shape of the house. Maybe it’s just the bright green grass in the middle of July. For me, a well lit house on a dark road will catch it every time. Landscape lighting makes your house stand out in a dark neighborhood and gives you those all important bragging rights over your neighbor.

Here are the top 5 benefits of adding landscape lighting to your home's exterior:

1. Beautification: Is there a focal point on your house that you want to showcase at night? You can draw attention to it by keeping it lit up at night. It could be the entrance, the texture on the house, or bringing the trees to light at night just to name a few. You can highlight whatever you prefer to be your home's focal point.
2. Usability: Patios, pools, and children’s play areas can all have extended usage without turning on the bright spotlights that make it feel like you are looking into the sun. "Lighting sets the mood”, and that definitely applies in these areas. 
3. Safety: Do you have any hazards in your yard? It could be steps on the patio, or a steep grade change. Keep them lit so you or visitors don’t miss those areas that could cause an accident. How about a walkway through the landscaping that the kids cut through, and end up stepping on and ruining the plants that you have spent so much time and money on. Path lights will help keep them off those plants and on the path.
4. Security: Most of us would do just about anything to keep our family and valuables safe. Having a well lit yard will help deter potential intruders by eliminating dark areas around your home.
5. Value: Landscape lighting provides a return on investment and creates a stunning first impression.

Having great landscape lighting may not “brighten up your day” but it will definitely “brighten up your evening”!