Landscape Lighting Gives a Cool Effect to Your Chicago Home
Landscape lighting in Chicago is the jewel in the crown of excellent landscaping. This is not to suggest that it is optional. Far from it. Most professional landscape designers consider light essential to completing their work, and essential to making it work. This is why tailored lighting is now an essential consideration in planning new homes and updating existing ones. Lighting is a way to revitalize existing landscaping and is vital in new greenery designs. Gone is the spotlight! Throw away the cans! The trend now is fixtures that you cannot see.
Outdoor lighting still has function, of course. It allows the use of outdoor entertainment areas after the sun has gone down. It lights the way on paths and walkways. It provides security. But you can have all of the essential functions with beauty built in. You often hear the term “nightscape” or “lightscape”. These terrific designs change the look of everything at night, using light and the direction of light. In the hands of a professional designer, lighting provides a daily makeover of your landscaping, using appropriate fixtures and their location. Light paints. Light draws attention. Light does much more than simply illuminate.
For many people, it makes sense. Why should they not be able to enjoy their greenery after dark? If you have invested in trees, plants, hardscape and water features, you want to enjoy them in the evening hours, too. The great part about it is that once a professional lighting design has been installed, you will see your home and grounds in an entirely new way.
Here are some of the terms for today’s Chicago outdoor lighting: Uplight, shadow and downlight. Uplighting, as you would imagine, points upward. When you light a tree from below, for instance, it takes on a whole new look (we are accustomed to seeing our trees with light from above, from the sun). Uplighting can give texture to a wall or draw attention to a fountain.
Shadowing throws a shadow, which is a dramatic counterpoint to a ray of light. A great new trend in downlight is hanging the fixture in a tree, so that it shines on the greenery below. It can be installed in traditional areas, too, such as from eaves of a house. Down is still the preferred direction for security lighting. But it can be wholly decorative, too. Landscape lighting does so much more than just flood an area with light.
