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Wall Grazing With Outdoor Lighting

There is something that nearly every property has that can be illuminated with outdoor lighting and that is a wall. Your home has them, businesses have them and any structure has them. Lighting the wall with a technique called grazing can be done to highlight features or surface. If you own a property chances are it can work for you.

Wall Grazing

When you think of grazing you probably think of animals in a pasture eating. That is not what wall grazing is so no animals will be eating your wall. Wall grazing produces a special gradient of light which does an excellent job of highlighting features while adding depth and complexity thanks to light and shadow. 

It works best with natural stone or wood which has unique textures and detail that cannot be found (or accentuated) with other materials but other materials like faux stone and stone veneer can look amazing too. So can columns or just about any material can look better, even concrete blocks, stucco and brick.

All About The Lumens

To produce the effect light has to be installed at the bottom of the wall. Focus needs to be paid to light color, the level of light and the spread of the light. This will be determined by the color of the facade and how tall it is. Dark colors absorb light and will require a different lumen level than a lighter color will. Lighter colors reflect light and that can cause glare and visual problems if the wrong amount of lumens are used.

The higher the wall, the more lumens will be needed. That should be no surprise as there is no point in highlighting the space above your house. A facade that is less than 10 feet tall will use 100-150 lumens while higher walls that are 20-30 feet high will use 200-350 lumens so that light can reach the top. Combine that with the spread angle of the light, that is how wide or narrow the beam of light is, and you have a lot of options to consider. 

That is even before you settle on the color temperature of the bulb. A warmer light creates more earthy colors while a whiter light highlights blues and whites. Which one is right for you?

Let Resort Lighting Help

If this is something that you want to do you have two options: You can install the fixtures yourself with a trial and error approach and probably a lot of frustration or you can hire a pro to do it for you. Resort Lighting will come to your Long Island home and simulate what this lighting will look like so you will know exactly what the end product will look like. We will work with you to choose what works best for your home and help your decision and then we will install the system for you. All you will need to do is sit back and enjoy the ambiance that wall grazing brings to your home.

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