Guest Blogger: Outdoor Lighting Ideas to Dress Up Your Backyard

More and more people these days are looking for ways to make the most of their outdoor home property they have, mainly because it’s such a bad time to try to sell it off in order to upgrade to a larger house. For this reason, plenty of homeowners are looking to increase their usable square footage. Some will do this by finishing the basement or attic to create a new room, or even converting the garage to a bedroom, man cave, or spacious home office. But not everyone has these options. Instead, you might turn your eye towards the backyard with a mind to design an outdoor living space that acts as a valuable extension to your home. And while it’s simple enough to throw in some outdoor furniture and a pre-fab fountain, you’ll have to do a bit more work if you want to create a truly useful space. So you might want to add some lighting to your outdoor lounge, and here are just a few illuminating options to consider.

Backyard lighting idea

Image via: KBC Developments

Outdoor lighting ideas

If the back porch light is too weak to reach even the edge of the patio, much less the rest of the backyard, but your flood lights are bound to blind anyone unfortunate enough to turn towards them after dark, then you might be looking for a happy medium that leaves your space adequately lit without trying to mimic the glare of high noon in an artificial medium. And there are several different styles of lighting that can deliver the effect you seek. The only problem is that you may have to do some prep work, running electrical wiring to ensure that there’s enough juice to light the entire yard without blowing a breaker or starting a fire, as well as potentially putting up poles and a webbing of wires to hold the lighting aloft.

String lighting ideas

For overhead illumination you should think about hanging anything from strings of globe lights (bare or covered with paper lanterns) to icicle holiday lights. You can crisscross them through the yard space in order to create a romantic and festive atmosphere. Or if you have plenty or hearty foliage and trees in the yard, you may consider stringing them up from these instead for a more organic feel. You could also add rainfall lights for a neat effect, or hang colorful and ornate glass lanterns found at your local imports store. And if you’re feeling really crafty, consider buying some fishing floats, still in the netting, and having holes cut in the top to accommodate a bulb for some cool, custom lighting.

backyard lighting idea

Image via: Pedersen Associates

Of course, you could probably save yourself some time and money by taking an old-school approach to the lighting, and here are more outdoor light options that could fit the bill. Just place cocktail tables around the yard with lanterns or candles for lighting sans electricity. You could even add tiki torches. Or look into the wide variety of solar powered lights available. They not only come on short rods that can be stuck in the ground to illuminate pathways, but you can also find small, portable globes to set on tables, as well as solar powered string lights to hang around the yard. You could illuminate your entire space via the power of the sun if you live in a temperate climate.

For more lighting ideas on Stagetecture, click here.