The back of the house is not curb appeal
Front yard lighting is for people looking at the house. Out back the light is around you, not in front of you. That flips most of the design rules. Nobody is grading the back yard from the street. What matters is whether people stay out there past nine.The short version: the patio deserves its own plan. The front and the back rarely get solved by the same fixtures, and one light over the door is the usual result of not planning it. Two spaces, two separate sets of requirements to satisfy.
Glare is the enemy
A single glaring bulb will empty a patio faster than no light at all. Look at a bright source and your eyes stop adapting to the dark. The fix is to put light low, high, or behind something: step lights, under rail, up in the trees, or behind a planter.
The overhead layer
Strung lights above a patio create a ceiling where there was not one. A patio without them is a slab under an open sky. With them it reads as a defined space. Keep them soft, every time.None of this costs much more than doing it badly, because the difference is mostly placement and color rather than the number of fixtures on the invoice.
Layers, roughly in order
A patio usually needs three kinds of light. Something overhead for general warmth. Something low for the steps, the edges and the path in. And something aimed at whatever is worth seeing out there. Put them on different circuits, since you want
https://evercrestlighting.com/about/ a bright option and a quiet one.
The business version
A restaurant patio has to solve this every single night. Bistro and string lighting across a patio is what keeps guests seated once the sun goes. Nothing changes technically. The stakes are just higher.
More nights outside
An unlit patio has a usable season that ends when the days get short. A lit one keeps working well past the point the sun stops cooperating. 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.
Warm light near where people sit
Anybody who has sat under a bright outdoor light in July has shared it with insects. Insects are drawn more strongly to the cool end, so a warm setting over a seating area is the better choice for more than one reason. It helps. That is all. But it is a free consideration when choosing the setting.If a permanent system covers the rear elevation, keep it warm and dim when people are out there, so nothing competes.
Getting your patio looked at
The plan comes from seeing how you use the space, not from a template. 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. The consultation is free. Call (864) 252-1732 or email
[email protected].