New Lighting Installation in the Rob Roy Community in Austin

March 24, 2020/in Uncategorized /by Beth Mayor

Our latest client in the Rob Roy community in Austin, Texas contacted us for an outdoor lighting consultation because they were tired of living in the dark at night. Their home did not have an outdoor lighting system currently and they wanted to add it for security and safety, but also to highlight the architecture of the home.

When we went out to meet with the client, we showed them some projects we have done in the area for properties with the same concerns. Our lighting designer worked with the client to show how we can add the peace of mind with security lighting while adding beauty.

With our lighting design, we were not only able to give them a very safe and secure lighting system around the property, but were also able to give a very dramatic and beautiful new lighting scene around their home, one that they are very proud to drive up to every night.

Our lighting system, coupled with our smart home integration, now gives our clients the ability to have a beautifully lit home at night while feeling safe and secure.

Texas Outdoor Lighting’s award-winning designers work with homeowners to produce a well thought out and laid out design plan to highlight your outdoor living spaces to create a warm and inviting space while adding safety and security. Call us today at (512) 504-3030 to schedule a consultation.

Creating a Budget for Your Lighting Project

You’ve seen all of our posts and beautiful photo images of landscape lighting and are ready to move forward: You want to have a lighting system of your own installed.

Coming up with a budget can be intimidating. There are three things you need to do to be on your way to creating the outdoor living space you’ve been dreaming about.

Figure out your budget. Think about how much you are prepared to spend on your outdoor lighting system. Like most any home improvement project, chances are you will end up needing to spend a bit more than you originally intended. So it’s important to have a realistic budget in mind.

Decide what elements of the lighting design will be most important. Ask yourself – what are you wanting to accomplish? Is security the biggest priority? Is it most important to have functional lighting for your outdoor living space? Deciding on lighting priorities early will help you when you are looking at your budget. While having every element of your outdoor space illuminated with differing levels of ambient light would be spectacular, it’s important to set a realistic budget. If you’re looking at doing lighting for your own personal enjoyment, consider where you spend your time in the evening.

Meet with a professional lighting designer. Landscape lighting can be intimidating when you don’t know where to start. This is where working with a professional lighting designer can make all the difference. It’s easy to design a lighting system when there aren’t any budget restraints, but this is not always the case. Don’t be afraid to let your lighting designer know that you have a budget and what that budget looks like. Our lighting designers can work within a budget to still create a lighting system that has a WOW factor. They can also help you revise and reconsider what is most important in the design and give you ideas how to stay within your budget while still being happy with the final look.

Texas Outdoor Lighting has award winning lighting designers who can come out to your property and together work with you to create a beautiful design that will fit in your budget. Call us today!

Fall is the Right Time for Outdoor Lighting!

October 23, 2018/in Fall Outdoor Lighting, outdoor lighting, Outdoor Retreat /by Beth Mayor

Even if we hate to admit it, summer is officially over! That means you have to pack up the grill, pull the plug on the outdoor lighting and completely forget about your landscape until next spring, right? Wrong! When the weather gets cooler and the days get shorter, people tend to focus on indoors, but this is the best time of year to enjoy your outdoor lighting and get the best use out of it!

Fall is an ideal time to have your landscape lighting done. In the summer, the days are so long that we only really get to enjoy our lights for a short time each night. We are lucky in the fall: the turning of the season, the cooling air, colored leaves and shortening days all mean its time to throw on a sweater and step out onto the patio to enjoy the season!

There is never a bad time for outdoor lighting. But there is a best time for outdoor lighting, and that’s now. Longer nights mean more time for your landscape lighting features to do what they do best — illuminate your beautiful home and landscape.

While it can still be quite warm in fall, evenings can get chilly. Create a warm, welcoming environment in your outdoor entertaining areas by adding uplights, downlights or sconces that provide just the right amount of light to warm up the space. Another great option of lighting to make your outdoor living space POP with all your fall entertaining is to add some café lights! Work with one of our amazing outdoor lighting designers to use landscape lighting to help create the perfect space for fall entertaining.

Want to extend the life of your landscape this fall? Get your outdoor lighting design process started by contacting us directly for a free estimate! (512) 504-3030

Driveway outdoor lighting providing safety and security Spicewood Texas

Driveway Lighting

October 16, 2018/in outdoor lighting, Safety Lighting, Security Lighting /by Beth Mayor

Have you ever pulled into a driveway that was so dark you had difficulty navigating yourself through it? Not being able to see properly probably made you worry about hitting something on the property or not seeing someone.

Now, consider your own driveway. Would your guests have any difficulty at night?

Lighting a driveway serves several purposes. It provides safety for you and your guests and adds that curb appeal to your property that we keep talking about!

Lighting your driveway serves as a guide to navigate you and your guests, creating a warm, welcoming ambiance at the same time. Driveway lighting gives your home that WOW factor, leaving a great first impression.

Here are 3 cool ways to light up your driveway

Down-lighting

If you have large trees along your driveway, down lighting is a great choice. Down lighting emulates the feeling of moonlight. Downlighting appears to be natural, feels natural, but is (in reality) luminaires skillfully placed and aimed. Depending on how many trees you have and your how your driveway is laid out, utilizing bollards or well lights might be needed in combination with down-lighting. Mixing up the light sources can help balance out the light and ensure an evenly lit driveway.

Bollards

Bollards are solid, sturdy, and stately. Providing a soft light around a driveway, bollards are great markers to define the edge of a driveway. Texas Outdoor Lighting will provide you with an outdoor lighting design that will space the bollards on your driveway proportionately. Alternating sides provides optimal light without creating a runway effect.

Up-Lighting

While bollards stand taller with a light source above the ground; up-lights are located closer to the ground. If you prefer fixtures that are less noticeable, up-lights are a great choice. If you have mature trees along your driveway, up-lights will help define the driveway edge and add ambient light. One amazing use of up-lighting is installing fixtures into the driveway cement or at the garage entrance.

Whichever type of lighting fixtures you choose, Texas Outdoor Lighting can highlight any potential obstacles along the driveway – trees, fences, walls, etc. – or at a change of direction. Additionally, providing adequate lighting at the entrance to the destination makes finding the entrance to your home easier and more appealing.

Call us today at (512) 504-3030 to schedule your free consultation.

Outdoor Lighting Home in Rough Hollow Lakeway Texas

Our Process: From Ideas to Finished Product

October 2, 2018/in outdoor lighting /by Beth Mayor

If you’ve been considering adding outdoor lighting but find you’re hung up on design ideas like where to place lighting and what kind of lights to use, let Texas Outdoor Lighting help you! We can professionally design and install the right outdoor lighting system to turn your ideas into reality.

The first step in turning your lighting dreams into reality is to contact us. You can call us at (512) 504-3030 or complete a request here. Texas Outdoor Lighting will come out to your property at no charge to you for a free consultation.

When we come out we will do a walk-through tour of your property together. This is a really fun process where we get to explore all of your expectations! We will discuss your wants, needs and desires for exterior and landscape lighting that adds beauty, safety and functionality to your outdoor spaces. We will also discuss with you how you would like your lighting system to be controlled. A great option for most homeowners is our smart home automation technology that allows you to control your lighting from anywhere. After our property tour, we will sit down with you to get your feedback and make sure we are all on the same page. Texas Outdoor Lighting wants your finished lighting project to be exactly what you imagined or better!

After our discovery meeting, our award-winning lighting design team will collaborate to create a unique, personalized, and tastefully executed lighting proposal. This detailed estimate will be emailed to you along with photos of your property marked-up with designators of where fixtures will be placed to give you a visualization of the finished product. We will then follow up with you to see if our visions match, make any necessary changes, and once you are completely happy with the design, we can move forward with scheduling your installation to turn your vision into reality!

Once our installation is complete, your designer will meet with you after sunset for the BEST part of this entire process: the look on your face when you see your property for the first time after dark! The transformation is always dramatic and beautiful, and our team LOVES experiencing it with you!

Give Texas Outdoor Lighting a call today! We would love to work with you on designing your new outdoor lighting system!

Making the Switch from Halogen to LED

September 4, 2018/in Commercial Projects, lighting fixtures, resort lighting, Safety Lighting, Security Lighting /by Beth Mayor

We have seen a lot of changes and progress within the lighting industry over the past decade. As with everything these days, newer technology and efficiency is developed and becomes available over time. An outdoor lighting system installed many years ago may be becoming old or even obsolete compared to today’s standards.

Halogen bulbs used to dominate the lighting industry. It was not until a few years ago that LED began to take over and become the industry standard. Now, it has become the choice of many outdoor lighting designers.

A few of the advantages of using LED vs Halogen are:

Longer Lifetime
More Durable
Low Energy Consumption
Easy to replace
They do not attract insects because LED lights emit very little heat and UV light
Much more cost effective

In these photos, you can see the before and after of a parking garage that Texas Outdoor Lighting converted from Halogen to LED.

If we haven’t convinced you yet of all the benefits of making the switch to LED, read this article from the Washington Post. Many manufacturers have stopped carrying Halogen light bulbs making it harder and more expensive to replace your bulbs.

Texas Outdoor Lighting offers free consultations to see if we can convert your current lighting system to LED, or one of our designers can work with you to design your dream lighting system. Give us a call today to schedule! (512) 504-3030

New Lighting Trend: Bistro Lighting

May 2, 2018/in outdoor lighting /by Beth Mayor

Bistro Lighting is a new and unique trend that’s specifically geared for use while entertaining. There are a number of ways this light can be used, from smaller deck projects to larger scale projects that light entire backyards.

As the weather continues to warm up, outdoor bistro lights provide a breathtaking way to provide light to your outdoor living spaces. Not only do they provide light to previously dark living spaces, they also increase the safety of you and your guests as well as add a festive, incomparable flair to your outdoor spaces.

Texas Outdoor Lighting uses the highest quality fixtures so the bistro lights we utilize are much more durable than the lights you can find at local home improvement stores. Contact us today for a free at home consultation with one of our award winning lighting designers to see how the hot new trend of bistro lighting can improve your outdoor living spaces.

Garage Lighting: Curb Appeal and Safety

April 24, 2018/in outdoor lighting /by Beth Mayor

The garage can play an important role in increasing your home’s curb appeal. Unfortunately, it can also be an easy target for thieves. A comprehensive landscape lighting design can enhance the beauty of your garage and boost curb appeal while deterring potential intruders.

The garage may not seem like a high priority when creating a landscape lighting design. You’ll want to consider, however, whether your garage is the focal point of your home’s curbside view and if it has interesting architectural features.

Up and down lighting can both help showcase stonework, brick, architecture and the garage doors themselves. While up lighting garage doors is easiest when the landscape lighting company collaborates with the builder before the concrete is poured, Texas Outdoor Lighting can core into already established driveways to get the same great lighting effect.

A combination of different lighting techniques such as up lighting, down lighting, column lighting, dormer lighting, soffit lighting, and nearby tree lighting can help illuminate the unique aspects of the garage doors while keeping your property safe. Our award-winning lighting designers can help you develop a comprehensive landscape lighting plan to keep your safety, security and the beauty of your home in mind so contact us now for a free consultation.

Outdoor Lighting: Landscape Renovation Trend

April 11, 2018/in Outdoor Retreat, Uncategorized /by Beth Mayor

More homeowners than ever are investing in eco-friendly outdoor projects whether its updating irrigation systems, emphasizing composting or creating an outdoor garden. John Wyer, an award-winning garden designer, gave predictions on outdoor trends for 2018 and stated that outdoor living spaces with integrated lighting will be a must have feature for residential outdoor living spaces in 2018.

According to Renee Changnon, the assistant editor for Hardware Retailing magazine, outdoor LED lighting is trending into the realm of a more eco-friendly space as well. In fact, Changnon states that 9 out of 10 respondents of her study reported substantial renovations or complete outdoor living overhauls and a huge 98.3% were looking to improve the lighting in their outdoor spaces.

A separate Houzz Landscaping and Garden Trends Study revealed that a majority of homeowners are upgrading their outdoor spaces, with 64% specifically addressing their backyard living areas. The top three uses of outdoor spaces are relaxing, gardening, and entertaining with outdoor living and beauty as the most valued aspects of outdoor design. A properly installed and maintained, high quality outdoor LED lighting system can assist in enhancing all of these aspects of outdoor living.

Texas Outdoor Lighting uses top of the line fixtures and LED bulbs. We also have a full time maintenance staff to take care of all of your lighting maintenance needs. Visit our website to see more examples of how we can help to transform your outdoor living areas from dark to functional and beautiful.

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