Ah, nothing says summer like kicking back and relaxing on a waterfront deck or patio. If you’re one of the lucky folks who owns waterfront property in the Burlington, Oakville, and Hamilton area, chances are good that you’re the envy of all your friends. And for good reason. The sound of the surf, the warm, moist breeze, the sand between your toes… there’s nothing quite like sitting next to the water.

Even though they live in paradise, waterfront property owners are forced to deal with their own unique mix of landscaping upgrades and maintenance projects. This includes the installation of outdoor lighting systems. While moonlit water is often lighting enough for your waterfront home, many people opt for outdoor lighting in order to enhance the aesthetics and safety of their waterfront property. If properly done, this addition can enhance the value of your home, transforming a beautiful property into something truly breathtaking.

Consider Your Lighting Options

There are many unique challenges involved in designing a waterfront  outdoor lighting system. First off, you want to make sure you select the right materials for your design. Remember, exposure to moist air can take its toll on your fixtures. When selecting the various lighting components for your system, be sure to consult with one of our lighting experts in order to ensure that the fixtures you select are durable and water resistance. Our technicians recommend avoiding brass and copper fixtures; bronze lighting fixtures are far more resistant to storm and wind damage. What’s more, they have an understated appeal that will compliment your waterfront landscape nicely.

The wiring and transformers used to connect your light fixtures will also require special consideration. Your electrical components will need to be protected from the moisture-rich air. Our lighting designers will take this into consideration when pulling the components together for your Burlington outdoor lighting design.

Setting the Mood: Design Ideas

Once you’ve tackled technical considerations, it’s time to consider the mood that you want to portray.

Professionally designed and installed outdoor lighting illuminates beauty that already exists on your waterfront property. Obviously, the most beautiful element of your property is the water itself. In most cases, this is naturally lit by the moon and stars. As such, it’s our outdoor lighting designers job to build off of this ambiance when lighting the rest of your property. In most cases, this will call for subdued lighting with a natural, moonlit feel.

The following are a few design tricks from the Nite Time Décor design book:

Direct Landscape Lighting Towards the Water

The best way to highlight your waterfront property is to let your lighting allow for a subtle view of the water. Position your outdoor lighting fixtures on landscape elements that guide your eye towards the water. If you have pathways or walkways, try lining these areas with smaller fixtures for safe evening strolls.

Light Up Trees, Passageways, Decks and Patios

Mimic moonlight by placing fixtures in the canopy of trees; position the light to provide safe passage and usability on decks and patios.

Even out the glow by spacing your outdoor lighting fixtures evenly throughout your property. This will provide balance to your property.

Enhancing the night-time experience of a waterfront landscape can only be achieved with intelligent, low voltage lighting. A subtle glow and strategically placed fixtures will help accentuate the inherent beauty of your property in just the right way.

Contact Nite Time Decor

For more waterfront lighting tips and tricks, contact the Nite Time Decor outdoor lighting experts today. We’d be happy to send one of our talented design reps to your property for a complimentary site assessment and lighting demo. We serve homeowners and businesses throughout Hamilton, Halton, Mississauga, Burlington and Oakville.

Lighting up your home is a large undertaking. But with the proper landscape lighting services you don’t have to struggle to have a beautiful after-dusk landscape. The benefit of Nite Time Décor’s outdoor lighting designs is that you can accentuate the unique aspects of your home. If you have a chimney, then this is the perfect feature to highlight as they are becoming increasingly rare with the decline in natural fireplaces.

Chimney lights may seem like a strange addition to your home’s architectural lighting design. However, a lot of lighting service technicians love lighting up the exterior of a fireplace as they can be a unique aspect of a home’s visage. If you have a chimney that you wish to accent on your home, be careful. Improper lighting could create some unintended shadowing. Here are some tips to battle this creative design prospect.

Why light up a chimney?

Why you should include your chimney in your architectural lighting design?
Fireplaces create a focal point indoors and outdoors. If they are wood burning fireplaces then they are the tallest section of your house, and therefore one of the most visible aspects from the street. It also singles out your home as architecturally unique.

As more and more homeowners go for electric or gas fireplaces, fewer homes will have the tall smoke stack. Homeowners can still add decorative pieces on the brick of the gas fireplace, so adding architectural lighting would look great too.

What are some problems that could occur?

One of the most important things to remember about chimney lighting is that it’s extremely important to have an  architectural lighting service expert install the fixtures. One of our experts will ensure that the job is done safely and done well.

Some chimneys are not visible until they rise to the roofline. This could cause some issues in proper placement of lighting fixtures. Our spotlight would light up your smoke stack beautifully if placed just above the eaves trough.

Architectural lighting design tips

There are a few things you’ll want to remember when lighting your chimney. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning your design:

Accenting

If you discuss chimney illumination with a lighting service technician, one of the essential aspects that they will cover is highlighting key architectural aspects. If you have anything near your fireplace that may prove to be a focal point – such as gargoyles or other statues – that is something you’ll want to draw attention to.

Up lighting vs. Down lighting

Do you want your chimney lit from above, or below? Of course, this will also depend on whether or not your fireplace rises from the ground up or can only be seen at the roofline. Look at the placement of other lighting fixtures on your home to see if up lighting or down lighting will create a cohesive façade in your architectural lighting design.

Recessed lights

Do you want the lighting fixture to remain in sight, or invisible? This is entirely about personal taste. Remember, though, that there are fewer options for rooftop lighting than for ground lighting, where post lights are available.

Think eco-friendly

LED lights may be an option for you if you want to protect your wallet, and help save Mother Nature from unnecessary electrical usage. LED lights are becoming more and more popular.

You may be thinking that LEDs are expensive. While this is true of the initial costs, the long-term savings will exceed the original expense. You’ll also be taking a progressive stance in reducing your carbon footprint. Just by buying a different light bulb!

We are can help!

If you have any questions regarding specific chimney lighting preferences, contact one of our architectural light service specialists today.

To get started on your architectural lighting design, request your complimentary lighting demo and quote from Nite Time Décor today. Serving homeowners and businesses throughout Halton, Hamilton including Oakville, Burlington and Mississauga.

How to Keep Bugs Away from Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor lighting can be a beautiful and valuable addition to your home. Not only will it accentuate the unique features of your house and garden, but it can extend your living space to the outdoors. With winters seeming to get longer and the summer months getting shorter, it’s important to take advantage of the beautiful weather by stretching the hours you can spend outside. Unfortunately, in the summer outdoor lights draw insects, and who wants to keep shooing moths away instead of enjoying a cool drink and a warm breeze?

Good news! There are ways you can minimize the effect your landscape lighting has on these pesky bugs.

Bugs swarming around your outdoor residential lighting can be quite annoying when you’re trying to enjoy a quiet night on your porch or deck. There is no concrete reason as to why bugs fly right into lights, but the common theory is that bugs tend to be attracted to the brightest light in the sky, like the moon, but now modern outdoor lights confuse them. This poses an irritating and persistent problem. Rather than turn the lights off or poison yourself with bug killer, depend on Nite Time Decor to make lights less appealing to buggy visitors.

Luckily, there are ways to keep insects away from your landscape lighting. Read on to learn about what kinds of bugs will be attracted to your  landscape lighting and how to choose lighting options that will minimize insect infestation.

What Kinds of Insects?

This is a brief list of the types of insects that will be attracted to your lights. Keep in mind that there are far too many to be listed here.

1.Moths
2.Some beetles
3.Mosquitoes
4.European hornets
5.Wood cockroaches
6.Mayflies
7.Crickets
8.Midges
9.Lacewings

Unfortunately, with bugs come other pests as well. This infestation of bugs may seem like an annoyance to you, but to spiders, bats, toads, and other creatures a proliferation of insects equals a feast! To avoid a full on infestation, increase the cleaning frequency of the lanterns in your landscape lighting maintenance routine. This will help prevent these creatures from coming around more often.

Why Are Bugs Attracted to Lights?

Though different insects are attracted to lights for different reasons, here are some of the most common (though not necessarily scientifically accurate) theories:

a. Unnatural light interferes with an insect’s ability to navigate

This theory suggests that nocturnal insects, such as moths, use light sources like the stars and moon to navigate by aligning themselves at a certain angle relative to the source. Because unnatural light sources like lightbulbs are stationary and closer than the moon, the angle changes, so it’s difficult for the moth to keep itself on course.

b. Bugs think lights are food

Insects seem to be attracted to ultraviolet lights and certain flowers (food source) emit UV light.

c. Insects think a light means the path is clear

Some insects think that the light means their flight path is unobstructed. This could explain why certain bugs seem to purposefully fly right into a sizzling hot light bulb.

Why Do Insects Love Landscape Lighting?

While it is different for every species, there are a few theories. For some bugs, the bright light acts as an emergency signal. They fly towards it, rather than into the darkness, as an act of safety.

Other bugs use natural lights as a navigational source, which forces them to be confused by artificial lighting. As long as the light is far away, such as the moon or the sun, the light can be used to guide them. As soon as the insect gets close to the light, they become confused. This is why you see moths fluttering around your Burlington landscape lighting aimlessly.

Some insects may become night-blind. Their eyes have multiple lenses that don’t always adjust to the dark properly, which causes a dangerous situation if predators are near.

Here are our top 5 Tips to keep bugs away: 

Change the Location of Your Landscape Lights

This one is fairly basic, but you can do things such as switching to spotlights and putting them away from where the bugs will annoy you. Consult with our residential outdoor lighting service to ensure that no matter where lights get moved, the illumination will still shine in an appropriate area.

Have Our Outdoor Lighting Experts Install Motion Lights

Installing motion lights may do the trick. Have Nite Time Decor install motion lights but put the sensor away from the lights. Just be sure that the area you want to light up gets lit! This way you, and not the bugs, will trigger your Oakville residential lighting to turn on.

Change the Light Bulbs in your Landscape Lights

Bugs tend to see very well in ultra-violet light – far better than we can. Thus they are naturally drawn to these types of lights. To keep the bugs away, try and avoid installing lights in the cooler light spectrum. Trying switching to a warmer, yellower light. Insects don’t see nearly as well in the yellow to infra-red spectrum. Since they can’t see yellow lights as much, they won’t be as drawn to them. It’s important to note that this won’t actively repel the bugs, but it will certainly reduce the traffic flow around your lights, especially if you have a persistent problem with May beetles, June bugs and moths.

Warm Colours Deters Insects

Warm light colours such as red, orange and yellow have the highest wavelengths. So naturally, you’ll want to use warm coloured bulbs in your outdoor lighting design in order to deter large swarms of bugs and insects. Yellow compact florescent bulbs, sodium vapour bulbs and halogen bulbs are lighting options that tend to decrease bug and insect activity.

LED Lights Keeps Bugs Away

LED lights are another great outdoor lighting option for keeping bugs away, as they emit little to no ultraviolet (UV) light. Insects and bugs are able to detect UV light, so having bulbs that emit no light and no heat will help keep bugs away. When it comes to LED lights, the lower the Kelvin (K) temperature, the more yellow the light will appear.

Be careful when it comes to incorporating large or low quality LED lights into your lighting design, as once the temperature reaches about 6,000 Kelvins, the LED will start to emit a blue tint that bugs and insects will pick up on.

Make Smart Purchases

Knowing which bulbs to use in your outdoor lighting fixtures will go a long way in keeping bugs and insects away from your illuminated outdoor space, but sometimes a good price may be hard to pass up. Just remember when shopping for new bulbs for your landscape lighting design that the cheapest option may not always be the best one. That’s not to say you can’t find reasonably priced warm-coloured bulbs and LED lights, but it’s important to think about how the lights you purchase will contribute to, or take away from, the overall look of your outdoor space.

Adjust your Landscape Lighting Timing

Timing is everything! When planning your landscape lighting maintenance, it is a good idea to make sure that you set your lights to turn on about one hour after sundown. There are some bugs that fly at dusk only, and you want to prevent them sticking around your lights when night falls.

Other Useful Lighting Accessories

While any of these alone will not do the trick, they can certainly help:

Citronella candles: mosquitoes dislike the smell of citronella.

Paint your porch ceiling a light blue: the colour may help keep wasps, mosquitoes and other flying insects away.

Ceiling fans: these can be a deterrent to flying bugs. Install them above your porch or balcony.

Bug zappers: these come in both electric and solar models. They can be a bit noisy and if you get an electric model, you’ll need to pay to keep it running. Put them in an area where you don’t sit frequently to reduce the noise and potentially the traffic flow.

When it comes to bugs and insects, there is no way to keep them away 100 per cent of the time. If one insect picks up on a light, others tend to follow in the same direction. But taking steps to minimize bug presence will certainly get you closer to having a less bugs in your outdoor space. For more tips on keeping bugs away read “How to Keep Mosquitoes Away at Night“. And if you care about insects, read this study on which outdoor lighting minimizes harm to insects.

Contact Nite Time Decor, We can Help!

For more information on outdoor lighting design and how to use the right bulbs in your outdoor space, contact one of our Nite Time Decor lighting design experts today! We serve homes and businesses throughout Mississauga, Burlington, Oakville, Halton and Hamilton, Ontario.