The right outdoor lighting will enhance the look of your new garage door

A new garage door can change the whole look of your home. You can highlight that new look even more by adding the right outdoor lighting around the garage door. You might as well light up your new purchase so you can get the full effect of the enhancement you’ve added.

Outdoor lights are meant to serve two purposes on the outside of your home. First, they add security by allowing you to see what’s going on around your home. Second, they add ambiance and give your house the feel that you are aiming for. Your outdoor lights are accents that boost the style of your home. They should produce enough light for making it safer to walk around outside at night, but not be so bright that a plane might want to land in your driveway. You want the style of lights you choose to match the architectural style of your house. Let’s talk about how to choose the right outdoor lights for your home that will be sure to enhance your new garage door.

Add lights around your garage door

Whether you have one single garage door, multiple single garage doors, a double garage door, or some other combination of doors, you should surround the garage doors with lights. Since houses have different setups when it comes to their garage doors, you should sit down and draw out what your garage design is. You need to include on the sketch what the measurements are for the space that’s around the doors. Then, you should indicate where the roof line is, any details such as eaves, and anything else that would affect where you can install your lights. Once you’ve created an accurate drawing of your garage door layout, you can start figuring out where you want to install lights and what kind you want to put there.

One thing to remember when you’re choosing where to put exterior lights is that you don’t want to put in so many that it looks cluttered. Experts will tell you that you should only fill up to about half of the space you have available with light fixtures. They also recommend that you leave some extra space around the light because it is more pleasing to the eye. It gives things a more balanced feel, which is great for curb appeal.

Looking for the right style of light fixture

Houses are built with different architectural styles. Your house may have a country or carriage house style, a modern and contemporary style, or a classic and colonial style to it. You want to make sure you stay somewhere within the realm of whatever the style is for your house when you are picking out the lights to put on the exterior of your home. You are trying to enhance the look of the house, not make it look chopped up and uncoordinated. You also don’t need to outshine any lights that are already close to your house. If there’s a streetlight right out in front of your house, don’t get too overzealous with your lighting because you’ll just be wasting money.

A quick search on Pinterest will reveal some great pictures of outdoor lighting ideas so you can be inspired by what others have done. You’ll be able to see how the lights on the exterior of your home can pull everything together and make your house look more connected.

These are lights that would work for a modern style home:

For a rustic style home:

You’ll also need to decide on lightbulbs

Lightbulbs aren’t all the same. You can buy bulbs with different amounts of power, different tones of light, different methods of producing light, and that use different amounts of energy. One important thing to mention here is that some light fixtures are meant to only be used with a specific type of lightbulb. You need to read the manufacturer’s information that comes with your light fixtures to find out what bulbs are compatible with the ones you’ve chosen.

Since we’re talking about outdoor light fixtures, you should only be using outdoor lightbulbs in them. They’re made to be more durable so they can withstand any weather conditions and other types of outside exposures. It’s important that you don’t use bulbs that are higher in wattage than what is indicated as the maximum wattage for your light fixtures. This can cause overheating. The normal wattage for an outdoor light fixture is 100 watts.

A great choice for many outdoor light fixtures is the LED lightbulb. They’re better for the environment because of their high energy efficiency and they’re resistant to most types of weather. You won’t have to change them very often because they will last for about 100,000 hours. Just make sure they are compatible with your light fixtures before you decide to purchase these.

There are also lightbulbs that should never be used outside. One such type of bulb is the spiral compact fluorescent bulb. There is a tiny bit of mercury contained within the bulb that is easily affected by cold temperatures. You’ll lose light any time the weather turns cold.

At this point, you should be ready to pick out the outdoor lighting that’s going to help show off your new garage door. You can get to shopping so you can start enjoying the new look of the front of your home.

Still in need of a new garage door?

You can reach us at the numbers below for help with finding the perfect garage door for your home. You can browse our image gallery also to see what we’ve done for other customers. And you can always request a quotation by email.

If you get a chance, stop in and visit our showroom to see some of our models in person. Then go online and play with different styles for your house with our interactive Design Centre.