Franchises can be helpful. For instance, when you are travelling, if you stop at a chain restaurant to eat, you pretty much know what you’re going to get– the options will basically be the same as the ones offered at home. It’s familiar. Not exciting, but familiar. But at the same time, franchises are limiting. The offerings are dictated by the corporate headquarters, not …
This article is based on the assumption that you have already made the decision to hire a professional outdoor lighting designer to design and install your lighting system. Now with that in mind, here are a couple of outdoor lighting tips to become an expert consumer and ensure you get a top quality landscape lighting system built by a competent landscape lighting contractor. …
When it comes to outdoor lighting, safety of the system is even more important than function and aesthetics. Today we will address safety and voltage. For outdoor lighting, there are three options for voltage: 220 volts, 110 volts and 12 volts. Let’s compare: 220 Volts This not the norm in America, but it is the standard in many other countries. …
Wait! Aren’t floodlights those horrifying things up high on the corners of the house with about 9 million watts, so the whole yard is lit up like a prison, and yet aimed right into your eyes, so you can’t see anything? Yes, those are floodlights, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re also not talking about taking the brightest …
The fact that we’ve been in the landscape lighting industry for such a long time has enabled us to come up with a breakdown of the steps for building custom landscape lighting systems. These steps are just a template, and tweaks are constantly being made to ensure the customer gets the best results possible! Once you’ve chosen us as your …
Trends come and go, and they can be fun to follow and participate in. But outdoor LED lighting is an investment, not a fad. So when something new comes along, we don’t just jump on the bandwagon and run out and install it everywhere. In the beginning, LED lights were pretty junky– erratic and often unattractive colors, low-quality fixtures, and …
Before there was light, there was darkness. We wouldn’t appreciate light without darkness to contrast it. One of the amazing things about light and darkness, is that you can use both to create beauty and drama. That’s why we don’t shoot fireworks during the day. Their beauty only becomes apparent when contrasted against the dark night sky. Think about the Statue of Liberty. She …
It seems that everyone can “do” outdoor lighting these days. Materials can be acquired, cables run, and connections made. And, voilà! you’ve got landscape lighting, right? Well, okay, strictly speaking you do. But you definitely don’t have good outdoor lighting. Believe it or not, there is an art to good outdoor lighting design. You can’t just grab 10 fixtures and …
We’ve all got some hard surfaces on our property: driveway, patios, stair steps, retaining walls, pathways, seat walls, firepits, etc. So. . . . can I add landscape lighting to existing hardscaping? Of course Southern Lights can handle that for you! Here are some top ways to add landscape lighting to your hardscaping – be it to already existing concrete features or right …
