A Grand Welcome Home Is Achieved with These 5 Outdoor Lighting Ideas in the Kansas City, MO, and Leawood, KS, Areas

Outdoor lighting can transform your Kansas City, MO, or Leawood, KS, estate’s nightscape by making your home appear warmer and more welcoming. There are many ways that landscape lighting can be used to make your landscape more functional and more beautiful. Here are some outdoor lighting ideas that you may want to consider including in your landscape design.

Planting Bed Lighting

If you have beautiful planting beds, you’ll want to be able to enjoy them even when it’s dark outside. Including outdoor lighting in your planting beds will brighten up these spaces to bring attention to your plantings, whether it’s highlighting their vibrant colors, unique shape, or texture.

Some of the outdoor lighting techniques that you may want to consider for your planting beds are spotlighting, silhouetting, and shadowing. Spotlighting involves shining a spotlight directly on the planting to highlight the entire planting. However, it can have other effects depending on the angle that it is set.

Silhouetting involves installing a spotlight at the back base of a planting and pointing it towards an adjacent wall, which provides a beautiful silhouette. This can be especially striking when used on topiaries or on plantings with a unique shape. Shadowing involves installing a spotlight at the base of a planting and shining it toward an adjacent wall, but it creates a softer shadow due to the angle.

Paver Walkway Lighting

Ensure your guests can see clearly as they navigate your landscape by including outdoor lighting fixtures along your paver walkways. These outdoor lighting fixtures can also add style and character to your outdoor space.

Available in numerous colors and finishes, you can create a unique look for your front entrance areas or even walkways in your backyard when you use landscape lighting fixtures. You could consider finishes such as oil-rubbed bronze, brushed gold, black, stainless steel, or even copper.

Moonlighting

Moonlighting can add a magical effect to your landscape. This outdoor lighting technique mimics the look of moonlight and involves placing a bright light near the top of a tree and shining it downwards toward the tree. This creates shadows of the leaves and the branches on the ground, and when the wind blows, it causes the shadows to dance, adding plenty of drama to your outdoor space.

Architectural Lighting

Bring attention to your architectural features with architectural lighting. The wall-washing outdoor lighting technique involves placing a light a few feet away from a wall and shining it toward the wall. This essentially “washes” the wall with light and adds a warm glow to your outdoor space. Uplighting can bring attention to the texture and shape of your architectural features. This technique can be especially impressive when applied to a natural stone feature because it highlights the natural variability and shape of the natural stone edge.

Spotlighting

While spotlighting can be used on plantings, it can also be used to highlight specific features, such as an artistic statue. This type of lighting is also considered accent lighting. Depending upon the angle that it is shined on the feature, it can add drama to your landscape.