Your property is something that immediately makes an impression with others. When someone pulls up to your driveway or drives past your home, your lawn is the first thing they notice. In order to make sure that your property is illuminated and secure, you may want to assess your current layout. A healthy lawn and quality outdoor lighting can make your home even more attractive and secure.

Reasons for Lighting Up Your Lawn

For many homeowners, the only reason for lighting up their front lawn and back yard is to provide more of an attractive feature to their property. But that's not the only reason why you should consider lighting. With the right installations, you can also use lighting to guide guests to certain doors and to certain areas of your home safely. You can also install lighting that will help deter burglars and other criminals from your home as well as keep entryways and doors visible from the street.

Your home is a significant investment in your life, you need to make sure you are keeping it in full view for your neighbors and for your own safety.

Safety First

When you're looking at adding lighting to your home, you might want to start with the ways you can make your home more secure. When it's already light outside, take an inventory of the doors that are accessible and visible. Again, but at night, look to see what areas are not well lit. This will give you an idea of where you should begin to set up things like flood lighting and safety lights that are motion controlled. These kinds of lights are easy for you to install on your own, but also allow you to maintain security for your home.

Next, for your guests, you will want to consider lighting around the pathways to your home. Small walkway lanterns are very popular and are often powered with solar energy, making them free of wiring and difficult installation steps. You might also want to choose a few post lights that will guide the way. These lights can be quite intricate and old fashioned or they can be styled in a more modern manner. You simply want your guests to be able to see from the time they step onto your property until they enter your door.

Creating a Well Lit Look

After you've taken care of the safety of your home, you might want to turn to fashionable accents for your lighting. Some people like to get a little creative with their lawn lighting because it can set their homes apart from the others on the block, while also being simply to change as their styles change.

Here are some ideas you can use:

• Highlighters - These are smaller lights that only come on at night and serve to accent certain things in your lawn. For example, if you have a fountain in your yard, you might want to add a highlighter light that will draw attention to it. You can also use lights that are within the fountain itself that will help to make the water sparkler as it moves in the fountain.

• Block lighting - If you want to create a nice look by day and by night, blocking lighting might be for you. These plastic looking blocks will look like a stone wall or ledge by day, but at night, they can light up to give a soft glow to a walkway or to a deck.

• Small accent lights - These smaller lights that line a driveway or a sidewalk are a nice way to add crisp lines to your property.

• Holiday lights - Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukah, the holidays are a perfect time to decorate your lawn and welcome in the spirit of the season.

How to Add Lighting Safely

When you aren't quite sure how to install a lighting fixture, this may be a good time for you to call in a professional. Though most lighting systems are easy to figure out, working with electricity is not something that should be taken lightly (no pun intended). If you are dealing with wires and configuring them in your lawn setup, you will want to call in a professional to do the work.

If you're only looking to install a few solar lights that don't require anything more than placement, you can probably handle that project on your own.

With the proper lighting, you can make your lawn stand out among the others, but be aware that people might be coming to you now for advice on how to make their lawns shine too.