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Good outdoor solar lighting is transformative. Design, landscaping, and mood are all greatly enhanced by proper lighting choices and turn a dark exterior into a structure that welcomes and entices. If you drive around at night, you’ll find it easy to tell which homes and commercial buildings have done their due diligence on outdoor lighting.

With outdoor solar lighting, such care for detail does not have to be costly or taxing, as it takes electric and gas bills and complicated wiring and installation out of the equation. You can create the curb appeal you desire while staying environmentally sustainable and within budget.

As attainable as outdoor solar lighting may be, there are quite a few steps to consider when creating the ideal nighttime lightscape for you. An excellent place to start is familiarizing yourself with the three basic lighting types: ambient, task, and accent.

Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting, also known as general lighting, provides overall illumination. Think of it as the glow that keeps walking around at night feeling comfortable and safe. This type of lighting is most often achieved through hanging lights, wall lights, and post lights.

Task Lighting

As you may have gathered by the name, task lighting is essential when you’re looking for lights that perform particular tasks. Some examples of such duties could be security for a specific location and keeping vital, highly trafficked areas well-lit, focusing on utility and safety. Choosing task lighting often involves the use of pathway lights, outdoor step lights, and post lights.

Here are some of the more common and crucial task lights to consider:

• Safety/Security Lighting – outdoor lighting can deter all manners of unwanted visitors. Different security lights can be placed in various entry points to a location: front door, garage, driveway, neighborhood entrance, and more. Security lights often come with dusk-to-dawn technology, which you can read all about here, or with motion sensors. These motion sensor lights, including Fireflier’s  Solar Area Light with Motion Sensing and Timer, automatically turn on when triggered by movement.

• Steps – whether leading to the front door, to the deck or otherwise, dark stairs are a hazard, especially as the seasons change and those steps may become icy or wet. Step lights prevent any potential dangers while adding to the architectural atmosphere. Deck lights and step lights can be installed onto decking, fencing poles, hardscapes such as gravel, and more. A light we’d recommend for this use is the Solar Post Cap Light.

• Doors – no matter if it’s the front door, garage door, side porches, or perhaps a shed, a door light not only keeps such entrances more secure, but it also adds some style and elegance. Choose a design that compliments the architecture of your home or business. Wall lights are ideal for illuminating one or both sides of a darkened doorway.

Accent Lighting

Accent lighting brings theatrics and visual flair with brightness and shadow. If you’d like to highlight specific architectural features, such as walkways, pathways, or any landscaping, that is what accent lighting is all about.

Landscape lighting is one kind of accent lighting that is crucial to consider. It is one of the more challenging decisions involved in accent lighting due to the wide variety of possibilities. Bushes, flower gardens, trees, and lush spreads of lawn all can add so much to a home’s exterior when given a spotlight. For a light that can be placed low on the ground, we recommend this Solar Spot Light with either bright white LED lights or warm white LEDs based on your preference. For taller lights belonging along a garden or yard pathway, we recommend the Solar Pathway Light.