Unlock Your Landcape's Full Potential With Tulsa Outdoor Lighting Design

Want to enjoy your backyard past just daylight hours? Carefully positioned landscape lighting for your Tulsa outdoor environment can create an enchanting area to entertain or relax in, well into the evening hours. Here are some Tulsa landscape lighting considerations to get you started.

To begin, decide what you want your outdoor lighting accomplish. That might sound simple…just create more light for at night, right? Well, to have an effective Tulsa outdoor lighting arrangement, you’ll want to consider different spaces of your backyard and what lighting effects are needed for them or what features of your landscape you want to enhance.

For instance, do you want pathway lighting perhaps to help your guests safely navigate to the backyard? Or do you want to showcase a focal point in your landscape like a fountain, pond, or statue? Does your deck or patio need accent lighting to outline the area? What tone or mood do you want your lighting to create for your whole outdoor living space?

Each of these different facets of your landscape can be borne with different types of lighting or different lighting arrangements. Key points like a statue or fountain may need a spotlight. Pathway lighting will of course call for several smaller lights arranged in a row.

Accent lighting needs to be situated so that it highlights but doesn’t overshadow the outdoor living space. This requires a balance of light between the landscape, different hardscape features, and the home itself. Pathway lighting can easily be overdone and begin to look like a runway, so lighting placement is essential.

Tulsa landscape lighting also needs to work well with natural or man-made changes that could occur to the landscape over the course of time like growth of foliage, hardscape additions, and seasonal changes. Outdoor lighting can look very different and out-of-place when these things start to happen if changes were not accounted for in the initial lighting design.

Low voltage lighting can be used to shape pathways, and it's safe, cost-effective, and environmentally-friendly.

For more outdoor lighting design tips, call the Tulsa landscape lighting specialists at Oklahoma Landscape. Our outdoor lighting experts can help you get the right tone and style for your particular landscape and home architecture, creating a custom outdoor lighting system that will help you ‘find yourself outside’ and fully enjoy your outdoor living space both during the day and at night.

We came across some very nice, well-balanced lighting designs as can be seen in these photos from our fellow lighting designers. The first photo is from London-based designers My Landscapes. The second photo is via Portland, Oregon designers: Beautiful Bones and Purple Stones.

Tulsa Christmas Lighting Safety Tips

Many use Christmas lighting during the winter to light up the night and brighten the season. But while holiday lighting and decorations can create a beautiful winter scene for your Tulsa home or business, these lights can also create a fire hazard if not used properly.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) noted that between 2007-2011 holiday lighting and decorative lights with line voltage were involved in an average 150 home structure fires per year.
To protect your loved ones as well as your home or business, take these safety precautions from the National Safety Council and the NFPA when decorating your home or commercial property.

• Before you hang your lights, check for any broken or cracked sockets, loose bulb connections, and frayed or bare wires. Do not use lights with damaged parts.
• Lights should be unplugged before replacing bulbs and fuses.
• Use clips to hang lights instead of nails, tacks, or staples so that the wires are not damaged.
• Only use lighting that is tested by an independent testing and rating laboratory like the Underwriters Laboratories (UL Label).
• Use the correct type of holiday lighting for the environment – whether for indoor or outdoor use – following the manufacture’s guidelines.
• Connect a maximum of three stands of miniature light sets and 50 bulbs for screw-in bulbs. Be sure to read the manufacturer’s instructions for connecting LED strands.
• Do not overload extension cords.
• Do not close windows or doors on extension cords.
• Turn off all lights and decorations before going to bed or leaving your home or business.
• Holiday lighting is meant to be used temporarily, up to 90 days, so take down and properly store all lighting after the holidays.
• When hanging outdoor lighting, be sure your ladder is on level ground and never stand on the top three rungs of the ladder. When laying against a roof, the ladder should reach at least three feet above the edge of the roof. Use a wooden or fiberglass ladder.
• Avoid hanging lights near combustible materials and do not hang or cover lighting with combustible materials like cloth or paper.
• Check with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for recalled holiday lights sets that could pose a greater fire or shock hazard.
• Do not use electric lights on metal Christmas trees.

For more information on winter and holiday fire safety, visit the NFPA at www.nfpa.org. The twinkling lights of holiday decorations can brighten up your neighborhood or business, but keep in mind these safety tips to protect yourself this season.