If you are one of the millions of homeowners planning to install landscape lighting outside of the home, there are five extremely important tips that you must know before you do anything. Ignore these design tips at your peril because if you do, you can be sure your outdoor lighting plan will not be as effective as it should be.

Of course, you could always hire an outdoor lighting service brunswick to do the work for you. But for those of you who are automatically predisposed to doing it all yourself, no matter what the job calls for around the house, than these must-know tips are going to do you a world of good.

1. Devise a Game Plan

So you want to put up some lighting around the house, you’re just not sure where or how to place it. Not a problem. You’re going to begin this process by drawing up a schematic for your lighting arrangement and if you’re not entirely sure what that is supposed to look like, simply look around your neighborhood.

Hop in the car and drive around the area to see how your neighbors have arranged their lighting. You don’t necessarily want to or have to copy what they’ve done but you can get plenty of ideas as to which areas of the home need the most light, which need less, and the type of lighting fixtures they chose.

Getting ideas from surrounding properties will go a long way towards informing the decisions you will eventually need to make about your own landscape lighting scheme.

2. Audit Your Yard

Head back home and grab a note pad, it’s time to go for a walk. You will want to stroll around your whole property, front walk, back yard, patio or deck, garage, front stoop, cover every inch of ground outside the house.

As you wander, make some notes as to the exteriors of your property that will best be served with illumination. What areas are the darkest at night? How much lighting do you want out front of the house? You should also start to think about the types of lighting fixtures you want to install in these locations.

Naturally, this is something you’re going to want to do in the evening. So you can get the best possible idea of what your home looks like in the dark. When the sun comes back up, you can then start jotting down some measurements based upon the notes you made the previous evening.

3. Lighting Styles

You’ve got a wide variety of lighting options from which to choose and making a decision should incorporate a number of crucial factors. The exterior aesthetics of the home, for one. You don’t want to pick a lighting type that clashes with the décor and architectural style of the house. Your landscape lighting should stand out, by all means, but it shouldn’t do so the point where guests and visitors are going to question your taste.

You should also decide on the bulbs you wish to use. LED’s are growing in popularity because they last longer, they’re more energy-efficient, and they are brighter than more conventional bulb options. You must also be sure that your lighting schematic doesn’t interfere with your neighbors. Sometimes a lighting scheme can be too powerful or aimed in a direction that puts the glare into neighboring yards and windows.

4. Identifying Your Electrical Sources

Now that you know where you want to position your lighting and what type you want to use, the next tip you must know is to identify any and all electrical sources and outlets that are available around the outside of your house.

Once you do that, you will then need to decide if you have sufficient power and outlet options to accommodate all of your lighting or if you need to get a landscape transformer. This is a unit that provides ample amount of electrical capacity so you have enough juice to power all of your lights.

5. Overlapping Your Lighting

When you begin to position your fixtures, watch out for creating any pools of light in which two light sources overlap. The result is an overabundance of lighting in areas where there should be a more subtle lighting design. Be careful that you’re not placing your fixtures too close to one another and aiming their illumination in the same direction.

Outdoor lighting should be more subtle and atmospheric, though you may want to make walkways and front steps brighter to prevent guests or visitors from tripping and falling in the dark.