Services · Curb appeal lighting
Curb appeal lighting. How the house reads from the road.
The facade, the frontage and the walk to the door, designed as one arrival. Steps and grade changes are lit for safety, without glare in your eyes or your guests'.
What it actually is
Every property has an arrival. Most answer it with a motion sensor.
A resort spends its budget on the drive in. Your house has that moment every evening, for you and for everyone who visits, and usually meets it with a porch light and a floodlight over the garage.
Curb appeal lighting designs the approach. The facade lit with texture, one or two trees framing the house, a walk that leads to the door instead of dotting the edge of it, and the door itself as the brightest point, so the eye knows where to go.
It's also where most projects start, because it's the part of the property seen every night.
The technique
Four layers, built in this order.
- i.
The door first.
The entry is the destination and the brightest point on the frontage. Everything else is set relative to it, which is why a lit house with a dim door still feels unwelcoming.
- ii.
The facade, with texture.
Stone and brick grazed from close in, smooth surfaces washed from further back, columns and gables picked out with beams sized to them. See architectural lighting.
- iii.
The walk and the drive.
Path fixtures at knee height, spaced so their pools only just overlap. You read the edge of the walk without a runway of evenly spaced dots, and nothing sits close enough to the drive for a plow to find it.
- iv.
Steps and grade changes.
Every step and change in level gets light at a low angle, legible from above and below, with the source shielded so nobody looks straight into it on the way up.
Start small
The front now, the back next season.
A focused front-of-house design with 10 to 20 brass fixtures runs $3,000 to $5,500. The proposal still covers the whole property, so the transformers, wire and zones are sized for the finished system and the rear yard drops into capacity that already exists. Full tiers are on the pricing page.
Curb appeal questions
Answered plainly.
What does curb appeal lighting include?
The parts of the property seen from the road and on the way in: the facade, the entry and front door, the walk, the edge of the drive, the front steps and the one or two trees that frame the house. Steps and grade changes are lit for safety, without glare in your eyes.
How much does front-of-house lighting cost?
A focused front-of-house design with 10 to 20 brass fixtures runs $3,000 to $5,500, our Economy tier. The range includes fixtures, wire, transformers, trenching, commissioning and warranty.
Can I start with the front and add the back later?
Yes, and it is the most common way larger projects happen. The proposal covers the whole property even when phase one is only the front, so transformers, wire and zones are sized for the finished system and the rear drops into capacity that already exists.
Will the path lights look like a runway?
No. Path fixtures sit at knee height and are spaced so their pools of light only just overlap. You can read the edge of the walk without a row of evenly spaced dots leading to the door.
Goes with
The arrival is the first layer of the evening.
Curb appeal pairs with architectural lighting on the house and landscape lighting in the garden. We work across Toronto, Oakville, Burlington, Mississauga and Vaughan, and further out.
All servicesYour frontage, next
Stand in the drive and see it lit.
We come out after dark and light the front of your house temporarily, so you judge it from the road before anything is dug. Free, 45 minutes, no renders.
Book free evening demo 888-444-1530