Friends, Fish and Landscape Lighting
Posted by Landscaper | Filed under landscape lighting kits
My last post on the practical side of landscape lighting – driveway lighting – felt a bit dry. I get it. Lights serve mostly to keep us from bumping our shins on stuff at night. But I’m an artistic soul and refuse to see landscape lights as simply a practical means to prevent accidents. Yes, my wife will be happier if I don’t back over her flowers. Yes, guests will find their way up my driveway easier. But, dammit, I want beauty!
Fortunately today gives me the opportunity to write about both practical and aesthetic elements of garden lighting because I just finished installing some lights at my friend’s house over the weekend and I loved the finished product. First a little background.
Rick is my wife’s friend from childhood. He’s since become one of my best pals. His wife, Eryn, is also my dear friend. Truth told, my wife has more in common with Rick (sharing his love of sports and animals) and I have more in common with Eryn (sharing a strong creative gene and a matched talent for delivering deadpan humor). Get the four of us together and we’re like a deck of cards; constantly shuffling between each other as our conversations meander.
But I digress from my intended point which is that Rick and I are constantly bartering debt. Not monetary debt, mind you, but obligatory debt. I’ll remind him he owes me a favor since I helped him move into the home he and his wife share only to have him remind me of the hours he spent helping me install my brick patio. I’ll remind him about the time I picked him up from a bar downtown at 3 in the morning after he locked his keys in his car, he’ll remind me that he once rushed me to the hospital after a baseball nailed me in the head. Round and round our debt cycle goes and, wouldn’t you know it, I came up due this weekend.
My wife and I received a call from Eryn Wednesday evening. My wife spent the first 30 minutes chatting and catching up before handing me the phone for another hour of chatting. As I grilled Eryn on her latest writing project I could hear Rick in the background repeatedly asking her to ask me something. She eventually got to it and asked me if my wife and I had any weekend plans. I told her we had nothing on our plate. She invited Kathleen and I up to their house for the weekend.
Ordinarily Kathleen and I would jump at the opportunity to spend time with our friends but I hesitated before responding. I’ve just started a new job, you see. It’s the kind of job where the very success of an entire contract depends on the skills I’m bringing to the table and that’s a tremendous amount of pressure. I was really looking forward to a relaxing weekend doing nothing more than kicking back and working on my recently neglected love affair with the big screen TV in my den.
Eryn could sense my hesitation and knew just what to do to convince me to come. “I’ll make margaritas…” She dangled the offer like a carrot. I told her that sounded nice but she could hear the hesitation in my voice so she upped the ante, “ and Rick will grill dinner…” Sold! Rick is an incredible cook.
The truth is that I would have likely caved even without the meal and drinks as bait. Mind you, I rarely drink but their company always mellows me enough to do so. We love Rick and Eryn and it’s those late night conversations over drinks we share with them that help recharge our batteries and make these trips worth taking. The food… well that’s just a bonus. What I didn’t realize was that I’d just been suckered.
Little did I know that Rick had other plans in mind. Sure, there would be food on the grill. Yes, there would be ice cold drinks. But what Kathleen and I didn’t realize was that we’d be working hard for every bit of it this weekend. See, a debt was coming due and Rick had his mind on landscape lighting.
In fact, when we pulled up to the house a couple hours before dusk Friday night, Eryn was in the backyard of their humble town house gardening. Rick met us at the door and promptly took us out back to say hello. In just a matter of minutes my wife was elbow deep in potting soil and mulch, helping Eryn wrap up the tropical getaway look they were going for. I, super smart guy that I am, managed to escape immediate labor by asking Rick if he had a beer.
As the ladies worked on the finishing touches in the garden, Rick and I sipped beers and caught up on the goings on in our lives. The ladies interrupted an hour later, driven from the garden by the setting sun. The interruption lasted only long enough to dispense sweaty hugs before both girls adjourned to shower and change. Separately, folks. This was a G-rated weekend.
While they primped, Rick and I prepared the grill, steaks and potatoes. As we worked, the conversation turned to my blogging efforts. I maintain several blogs related to my hobbies and interests and Rick has even contributed content to one of them. “What about your landcape lighting blog,” he asked, “you still doing that one?”
I told Rick that, while the blog was still there, I hadn’t done much with it lately. Other than backing over my wife’s flowers, there wasn’t much in my personal life to write about. “It was a long winter,” I reminded him, “and we still have to restore the yard from all that snow.” I went on to tell him I’d be writing some less personal stuff for the blog soon; product reviews and the like.
I should have caught on when he responded with a simple grunt. There was something hidden in that monosyllabic sound; the promise of content soon to come. That hidden promise was delivered in what I suspect was a well rehearsed act put on by our hosts the following morning over breakfast. It went something like this -
Rick: Hey, Honey, did you know that Dave hasn’t been keeping up on his landscaping blog?
Eryn: Really? That’s too bad, Dave. Has the muse left you?
Me: No, I’m writing plenty on my other blogs but I…
Rick interrupting: He just hasn’t had much content to add lately. Weren’t we just talking about adding some landscaping lights to the backyard. Maybe we can get some work out of him while he’s here.
Eryn: Oh, Dave, would you? I want my garden to look like yours!
That last was delivered with much batting of eyelids, a pout and a flirtatious touch on my arm. It could have only been more classically staged and ripe with girlish manipulation if she had immediately followed the touch on the arm by asking me if I’d been working out. My wife snickering behind her hand made it all too clear that I’d been played like a virgin Vegas tourist. I turned a steely gaze on Rick and expressed my enthusiasm, “you tricky bastard. You’re cooking me swordfish for dinner tonight.”
While my wife and Eryn headed out to do some shopping – and to pick up my swordfish steak for grilling that night – Rick and I jumped in his Jeep for the short drive to Home Depot for a light kit. As much as I’d like to hold it against him for making me work on a weekend, the truth is that he did provide me landscape lighting material.
But I’ve spent enough time on the background to this story that I think I’ll wrap things up here for now and will get to the heart of the matter over the next few days. It has proven to be a busy week at work so far and don’t expect that to slow down anytime soon so I won’t make any promises on timing. But, I do promise that the follow-up to this post will be a complete guide to installing an 8 piece, metal, Malibu landscape lighting kit. There are pictures and plenty tips on creativity to share.
Given the small size of Rick’s yard, the results were pretty darn impressive. He’s thrilled, Eryn loves me and I have material to share. I guess it was worth the effort. Oh, and the swordfish was amazing! Check back soon for the guide!
Tags: landscape lighting, landscape lighting kit, landscape lights, lights, malibu landscape lighting kit
Hiding Undesirable Features with Outside Lighting
Posted by Kathleen | Filed under Planning Outside Lighting
As you peruse the posts here at Lighting up Landscaping, you’ll discover that we’re doing the best we can to take the mystery out of the process to help you create to-die-for landscaping. In the process we offer both practical solutions and focus also on the artistic elements. After all, anybody can just plant some landscape lights and walk away with an illuminated garden. But illuminated doesn’t necessarily translate into attractive. It pays to know what works and what the benefits are to better help you plan your creation.
Thinking logically about outdoor landscape lighting, you should have realized by now that you’re really only getting the benefit at night. But take a look around your garden during the day time and expand the depth of your vision beyond the confines of your garden a bit. What do you see that you don’t like? Looking out over my modest townhouse garden plot and beyond, I see telephone poles and power lines. I see the building across the street. I see taller vehicles such as SUVs and vans parked along the access road behind my garden. None of it adds to the visual appeal of my garden even in the best of circumstances.
Now bring your focus in and take a look around your garden. Stand in each corner and really “see” what you’re up against. Are there features inside the boundary of your wall or fence that detract from the overall beauty? In my own garden I see the AC unit, electric meters, two trashcans, a hose caddy and a grill. All of these are useful and I really can’t do without them but none are particularly attractive. Does your garden contain similar features you’d rather were invisible when hosting or entertaining?
It’s with these unappealing elements in mind where your landscape lights really have the opportunity to shine. Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. The point is that landscaping lighting trumps daylight for the simple reason that daylight illuminates everything. The ugly telephone poles, the power lines, the neighbor’s property and surrounding buildings, and anything else you wish weren’t visible and detracting from the overall theme and beauty of your prize garden.
Well planned outdoor garden lighting affords you the opportunity to feature only those elements that should “pop” while the absence of that brilliant bulb in the sky in the evening leaves those undesirable features conveniently hidden. It’s one of the reasons I’m such a fan of hosting events at night. Great features such as a pond, a beautiful tree accented by up-lighting, or a whimsically lit garden path serve attract the eye to what you want seen. Meanwhile, all the rest is hidden in the convenient blanket of the night.
So before you dig a trench for your conduit or purchase landscape lighting kits, have a good look around and think not just about what you want to highlight but also about what you want to hide. With outside lighting, it’s as much about what isn’t lit as about what is.
Tags: landscape lighting kits, landscape lights, outdoor garden lighting, outdoor landscape lighting, Outside lighting
