Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

Outdoor lighting should consist of primary lights that illuminate the space and secondary lights that set the mood. To incorporate both of these in your patio or deck, it’s best to determine the outdoor lighting before you build.

Some primary lights include wall-mounted sconces on the sides of doorways, pole-mounted fixtures along the path to the garden, floodlights for late night hot tub or pool parties and motion detectors for security purposes.

Secondary lights include lanterns strung near the patio furniture, strings of small lights for trees and shrubs and soft glowing landscape lights.

This tall Moroccan-style candle lantern has a unique look, which would provide a subtle glow around the outdoor dining area. The dimensions are 6 1/4” x 5 3/8” x 19” high. White Barn Gifts sells other Moroccan-style lanterns in blue, yellow and amber glass. Lanterns like this call for a relaxing dinner with friends or a romantic night with that special someone.

Having control over your lighting is an easy way to set the mood, and this was discussed in one of yesterday’s post about maximizing your media wall. Some dimmers can be tricky, because you have to click them once and then hold and sometimes your hands are faster than the dimmer.

Lutron has created Vierti, which is a single-touch dimmer that enables you to easily adjust the lighting with the swipe of your finger. These can be used in any room, but if you have movie theater room, the green or blue LED light on the dimmer can add some pizzazz. However, if you prefer to go the simple route, a white LED light is also available.

Vierti comes in more than 21 architectural-style wallplate colors and finishes too. Even at their highest brightness (100%), they save 4% of your energy. The dimmers also have an “At Rest Mode,” which is the mode they fade to if the light level hasn’t been recently adjusted.

There are a variety of outdoor lighting options available to brighten up your landscape and walkways at night.

Posts, or “bollards,” can add a stately feel while illuminating your driveway, sidewalks, and walkways after dark.

The Circolo Bollard lamps from Boyd Lighting offer simple elegance with their metal bodies and metal-on-white-acrylic scrollwork.

Designed by Doyle Crosby, the bollards stand three feet tall and six inches wide. The outdoor post lamps are available in several finishes, such as blackened brass (shown), cinnamon bronze, satin nickel, and black granite. They take one outdoor-rated fluorescent bulb.

Looking for some unique ceiling lighting?

It doesn’t get much more unique than the Astral Chandelier from JGoodDesign.

It “captures the graceful curves and balance of the traditional chandelier, leaving the traditional weightiness behind.”

Each piece is one-of-a-kind. Hand-blown in New York City, the chandelier is available in numerous colors and configurations and with or without internal satin stripes.

You can hang one or more tiers to get the look you’re going for.

The one shown here is 42″ in diameter.

Just because the sun goes down doesn’t mean you have to take your party indoors. And you don’t have to be stuck barbecuing by the glow of the porch light either. Thanks to today’s trend toward creating outdoor living spaces that are just as homey as the indoors, you can get all sorts of lighting that looks just like the stuff you’d find inside.

There’s no need to stick to pathyway lighting and caps for the deck posts either. Outdoor lamps and outdoor ceiling light fixtures are available in many sizes and styles.

This Casa Seville 12″-wide lamp is specifically designed to withstand outdoor conditions. The flush-mount ceiling light fixture features a dark walnut finish and decorative scrolls with a champagne water glass shade.

$140 at Lamps Plus

Shopping for new light fixtures is always kind of fun. You can see a lot of options by visiting local lighting stores, but there’s an amazing selection at some of the online stores, so whether you’re looking for rustic or modern, table lamps or chandeliers, it’s definitely worth perusing the web.

If you need ceiling fixtures and like the sleek modern look, then this Stratum Chandelier may be worth a peep.

The simple hanging lamp features clear and etched glass shades and is part of a collection by Thomas Lighting. In addition to the chandelier, you can get one- or three-light pendant lamps in the same style.

This one costs $756 at Lighting Universe:

M2199 Stratum Chandelier

A night light is always a handy thing to have around the house, even if you don’t have kids who are afraid of the monsters under the bed. Adults are probably more likely to make nocturnal trips to the bathroom or kitchen anyway. It’s always helpful to have enough light so you don’t trip over a dog, cat, coffee table, etc.

Most night lights are designed to stay on all night, but if you prefer darkness when you’re sleeping (and don’t want to waste those watts of energy on an all-night-light), you could check into the GE Motion Sensing Night Light.

The inexpensive light plugs into an electrical outlet like any standard night lite, but it doesn’t stay on all the time. When it senses motion–i.e. someone walking down the hall in the middle of the night–it flicks on for a short while, and it soon turns off after the person has left the area.

Reviews at Amazon are positive, so check out the page if you want more information:

GE Motion Sensing Night Light

Nope, these aren’t your grandparents’ or even parents’ table lamps.

The Lisa table lamp from Plug Lighting is made from mirrored blown glass featuring a “bark like” effect.

You can choose from the three colors shown here and get a white or black lamp shade.

The Lisa table lamps stand 12″ wide and 29″ high and take a 100 Watt bulb.

The company has a lot of other unique lighting options, so take a peek at their site if you like what you see. Los Angeles-based Plug has “earned its reputation by providing products by the most creative artists and companies using the most cutting edge materials and technologies available today.”

By now you’ve heard that compact fluorescent light bulbs save energy (and therefore save you money), but they’re kind of funky looking aren’t they?

If you’ve tried to insert them into your existing lamps and light fixtures, you may have oddly shaped bulbs sticking out of the ends.

Well here’s an excuse to go shopping for new lighting: you can buy lamps that are specifically designed to hide these goofy looking bulbs.

For example, these mono-point glass pendant lamps have shades designed to hide compact fluorescent bulbs. Several colors and styles are available, so you can get an attractive modern look… without oddly shaped bulbs sticking out of the end.

From Con-Tech Lighting

If you enjoy outdoor entertaining and your parties often last until after the sun sets, then it makes sense to invest in some outdoor lighting.

Traditionally, folks think of pathway, house, and landscape lighting, but it makes sense to brighten up the deck, patio, or other entertaining area as well. Today you can get outdoor lamps in almost as much variety of style, size, shape, etc. as indoor lamps.

This hand-carved slate lamp features hammered copper details and a brushed suede shade that is weather resistant. The lamp can be placed indoors or outdoors and plugs into a standard outlet.

Homey outdoor lamps such as these offer a little more warmth and ambiance than your typical metal outdoor lighting fixtures.

From Uttermost