Sometimes lighting up something as simple as a fence or wall with the correct artistic outdoor lighting effects can add alot to your outdoor living in the evening hours. Here are a few examples. The right outdoor lighting, designed and installed correctly will be enjoyed for many years
Tag: landscape lighting raleigh
Working with an outdoor lighting designer.
As a lighting designer , I work with homeowners in and around the Raleigh NC area to determine how you enjoy your outdoor space, particular features or a structure that you would like to highlight with outdoor lighting. What you like most about your homes architecture, specific trees or plant you like. A walkway or path you would enjoy or use more if it was illuminated. A favorite pond or water feature. Features you love most in your outdoor kitchen or along your hardscaping that would look great with outdoor lighting.
Accent lighting,which is light gently grazing the surface of the stone, stucco, and brick will add depth and dimension your home’s architecture as well as showing the features. This home is a great example. Accent outdoor lighting such things as an arbor, fence a statue or structure and trees will give you a dramatic and attention-getting visual lighting effect, creating a lighting scene with a backdrop as well as mimicking moonlights natural effects.
Water feature lighting. Illuminating a water feature, pond or pool combines 2 effects, you might have some trees or plantings near the water that will look interesting with up lighting. You also get stunning mirrored images on the water’s surface, creating dreamlike effects rippling across the water’s surface.
Accent and illuminate a bridge over a water feature with outdoor lighting to highlight it’s features and create safety. . Path way outdoor lighting will create a sense of security along stone pathways and lawn walkways as well as adding a hint of intrigue to plant beds and boulders along the way.
Down lighting with lights placed up in trees shining thru the trees creates stunning shadows on the ground below mimicking moonlighting effects. . Patio and deck lighting will feature and accentuate all of the architecture, beauty and detail of your deck, patio, outdoor kitchen, hand railings, steps and more while creating safety. Hardscape outdoor lighting brings out your stone features along with your outdoor kitchen, retaining walls, steps and more.
Call us Today 919-518-9950 Lite Visions Outdoor Lighting and Landscape Lighting Professionals Raleigh NC
GOOD VS BAD OUTDOOR LIGHTING
Today’s blog is going to talk about things we have seen driving in the evening from installing a lighting installation. Here is the first example below of good and bad lighting placements, the fixture in the grass will be beaten up by lawn maintenance and equipment and will not last very long in that area. Path lights should be installed in a mulched bed or walkway to not only use them properly for their effect but also to protect them from landscapers and equipment. Also notice you do not see the lamp source only a soft pool of lighting with good lighting.
Bad Design Fixture In Grass 
Good Design Fixture Protected
You should never see the bulb or glare in a lighting fixture if the lighting is properly designed with the correct fixtures. Bad Design Fixture In Grass Good Design Fixture Protected Good Design and Path Lights provide safety light DO NOT place lights under windows ever,this not only looks bad but will also cause lighting to spill into windows and cause a glare so you can’t see out of your windows. A lighting designer would never install lights under a window. As a lighting designer we use several filters and know the difference in lamp color temperatures. Waste of money lighting under windows Notice architecture softly lit with no glare from windows. pathway also lit softly .
bad light placement lighting up windows 
proper lighting placement 
proper lighting placement
Transformer placement, shiny aluminum transformers should be hidden behind plant materials or placed alongside other mechanical equipment,Transformers should never be seen in plain sight in front of a home or building. Ugly transformer job and even lit up at night Transformer well hidden out of sight behind plant materials Do you see the transformer ? Call or contact us today if you want your outdoor lighting design done right the first time. 919-518-9950
bad transformer placement 
hidden behind plant material
Lamp Color Temperature and outdoor lighting design
Nothing looks worse than a BAD outdoor lighting design. There are alot of people out there who call themselves outdoor lighting experts. Many of these so called lighting experts work in another industry and probably attended one lighting manufacture’s class and buy their light fixtures with the lamps that come in them and have no idea the difference in color temperature and beam spread let alone wattage.
A true outdoor lighting designer has many years of knowledge and continuing education to create a properly designed outdoor lighting system. No two outdoor systems are alike. While a 2700 kelvin lamp will make a crepe myrtle look outstanding,put a 3000 kelvin lamp on another crepe myrtle beside it and it will look like an alien due to the light being too white. I see this alot in subdivision entrances leaving neighborhoods I work in at night.
A professional outdoor lighting designer has quite a few tricks up his sleeve to make your outdoor lighting shine better . From different filters to diffuse and soften a lamp to different wattages ,beam sizes and even colors.
An American flag is lit properly from the bottom of the post to the eagle on top to the flag when flapping in the breeze. This takes knowledge of a proper amount of light fixtures as well as proper color temperatures.
Lite Visions has many years in the concert industry and as professional lighting designers we take pride in proper outdoor lighting that will last and make your home and property shine like the castle that you are proud of. You worked hard for your dream home. Don’t just let anyone light it up.
Integrated LED vs drop in LED lamps
Integrated LED outdoor lights have been around for a few years now. The great thing about LED integrated fixtures is most have a minimum 10 year warranty and up to a 20 year warranty. Integrated LED light fixtures are meant to operate cooler for longer chip life as well as giving a better light.Some are even adjustible with the color temperature of the fixture as well as the focus of the light on the one fixture making it easy to adjust them and not have to go thru several lamps. Some are specificially built for mounting into hardscaping or for use at down lighting in trees. They are very energy efficent and green friendly. Integrated fixtures due to having these great fixtures are a bit more pricey. Integrated LED fixtures are the Lexus of the low voltage lighting industry.
LED drop in lamps have gotten better better and better and keep getting better.Gone are the days several years ago when you had only cheap chinese LEDs with lots of bubbles that would slowly burn out one bubble at a time. The best LED lamps come with a 3/5 year warranty and are easy to replace in most low voltage fixtures. They are built to run in totally enclosed fixtures so as to not get any moisture into the chip and run extremely cool and are very energy efficent and green friendly. Drop in LEDs are a great cost effective option for alot of outdoor lighting jobs.
Lite Visions provides an installation warranty on both type LED fixtures as well as an annual maintenance of our installed systems.
Creating a Backyard Oasis with Outdoor Lighting
Homeowners can take advantage of sunny days with outdoor living spaces. When you create an outdoor living space around your pool, you will be able to encourage your family and friends to spend time outdoors and enjoy some fresh air. With today’s busy lifestyles, families want to be able to enjoy their outdoor living spaces every minute of the day—even after dusk. Lite Visions Landscape Lighting offers several outdoor lighting techniques which can achieve a dramatic look while providing a safe, cozy, people-friendly environment. This is a recent lighting job we designed and installed in Wakefield.
Lite Visions Landscape Lighting
We Do Our Best Work At NIGHT.
Creating Magical Outdoor Lighting Effects With Water in Raleigh
When outdoor lighting is added to homes, trees and plant materials near any type water feature, pond or pool, as a bonus to the feature itself looking stunning, the outdoor lighting will usually create a beautiful mirrored effect onto the surface of the water.
Give us a call today 919-518-9950 to see your home in a whole new light with outdoor lighting in the Raleigh NC area.
Working with an outdoor landscape lighting designer in Raleigh NC
Accent lighting,which is light gently grazing the surface of the stone, stucco, and brick will add depth and dimension your home’s architecture as well as showing the features. This home is a great example.
.
Accent outdoor lighting such things as an arbor, fence a statue or structure and trees will give you a dramatic and attention-getting visual lighting effect, creating a lighting scene with a backdrop as well as mimicking moonlights natural effects.
Water feature lighting.
Illuminating a water feature, pond or pool combines 2 effects, you might have some trees or plantings near the water that will look interesting with up lighting. You also get stunning mirrored images on the water’s surface, creating dreamlike effects rippling across the water’s surface.
.
Accent and illuminate a bridge over a water feature with outdoor lighting to highlight it’s features and create safety.
.
Path way outdoor lighting will create a sense of security along stone pathways and lawn walkways as well as adding a hint of intrigue to plant beds and boulders along the way.
.
Down lighting with lights placed up in trees shining thru the trees creates stunning shadows on the ground below mimicking moonlighting effects.
. 
Patio and deck lighting will feature and accentuate all of the architecture, beauty and detail of your deck, patio, outdoor kitchen, hand railings, steps and more while creating safety.
Hardscape outdoor lighting brings out your stone features along with your outdoor kitchen, retaining walls, steps and more.
Call us Today 919-518-9950 Lite Visions Outdoor Lighting and Landscape Lighting Professionals Raleigh NC
Lite Visions Outdoor and Landscape Lighting of Raleigh’s Professional Memberships
Raleigh,North Carolina
Is proud to be one of a small handful of members of
The Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals
whose mission is To Promote and Advance the Outdoor Lighting Industry
Mission of AOLP
To promote and advance the landscape and architectural lighting industry for lighting designers and installers.
Here is a link to AOLP’s consumer webite with some great outdoor lighting information
http://www.youroutdoorlighting.com/consumersite/
We Fix Outdoor Lighting Installed By Landscapers or Homeowners
One of the sad things in this industry is how many outdoor lighting manufacturers trying to push their products by giving a short class to landscape industry companies who stick lights in the ground and never come back to focus them properly and do not use good installation methods. Here are a few recent examples of what we fixed.
VOLTAGE PROBLEMS Outdoor lights getting 16 volts to a 12 volt light fixture and blowing bulbs on an old halogen system, we corrected the voltage and then installed all new LED lamps.
BAD WIRING Outdoor older halogen system browning out due to getting only 8 volts to some of the lights, there was corrosion in many wire splices and poorly done wire connections. We fixed the voltage and now they have an energy efficient LED system.
NO MAINTENANCE, system not working due to tree roots damaging cables and lights actually growing into tree roots. We ran some new wires replaced fixtures and re-lamped with new LED lamps.
DIFFERENT LAMP TEMPERATURES, lamps had been purchased at several different chains and were not all the same color temperature or beam spreads. We took out and reinstalled all new same color temperature LED lamps and the system looks brand new.
WHITE LIGHTS ON CREPE MYRTLES : There are several different color temperatures of LED lamps, some DO NOT look right on certain trees. We installed correct color temperature lamps along with a filter and now the Crepe Myrtles look natural lit up at night.
A Lighting Designer is someone who understands the science of working with light and shadow,using a pallate of many different outdoor lighting fixtures,lamp types,different color temperature lamps for different purposes as well as different lamp beams and shields, filters or louvers to shield light from peoples eyes so they can see only the effect, not the source. He might only use one fixture from a certain manufacturer that does one thing better for the specific outdoor lighting job.
A customer recently called and asked if I could look at updating their older lighting system and that they were getting a quote from their landscaper also after telling him about their lighting interest, I said No Problem I can guarantee my quote won’t be as low as his but feel free to call me to fix the landscapers work as I do it all the time.
A lighting designer installs the outdoor lighting system correctly the first time, with the bulletproof waterproof connections that will not be a problem down the road. He also checks to make sure all the light fixtures are getting the correct voltage and comes back the evening after the lighting install to properly focus the outdoor lighting system.
As a Lighting Designer who only installs outdoor lighting , we stand behind our outdoor lighting installs and use the best-LED lamps available to the professional outdoor lighting designer,I have overheard pond people and landscapers talking about once they pickup their check they simply do not care how long the lights last.
We are a member of the Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals, we are one of only a small handful of professional lighting designers in the NC area.
Please read our 5 star reviews on Google and give us a call about seeing your home in a new light
919-581-9950