A swimming pool deck can be a gateway to a luxurious resort-like outdoor experience during the best times of the year in Cold Spring, NY. The right landscape lighting helps this aesthetic along by making the pool and the pool deck more magical at night. Well-planned outdoor lighting can also transform a relatively simple poolscape into eye candy after dark so that you can admire it from within your home or another part of the landscape. Setting these aesthetic benefits aside, keeping your poolscape well-lit at all times is absolutely essential to ensuring your safety. Read on for helpful pointers to achieving outdoor lighting that does your poolscape justice:
Mimic the Moonlight
A moonlit swim is always exhilarating, however, the moon isn’t as reliable as permanent lighting. Lights can be mounted high up in trees or on roof gables and angled downward to achieve an effect known as moonlighting. Having tall trees near your pool can be a nuisance as they shed their leaves into the water. However, these gentle giants become invaluable when trying to achieve realistic moonlight because they cast interesting shadows of branches and leaves onto the ground.
Greenery That Glows
One of the most effective ways to give a poolside an exotic, paradise-like look and feel is by incorporating plenty of plants and natural rock into the area. After sunset, all this lush landscaping can practically disappear. Keep the greenery surrounding your pool well-lit to maintain their beautiful partnership. You can be as dramatic as you’d like in highlighting your plants. Use a bulb of low intensity to softly highlight the delicate contours of a small tree or use an upward-facing spotlight to draw focus to a larger tree in a more staggering way.
Related Read: Hardscaping Ideas for Luxurious Poolscapes in Medford Lakes, NJ
Cheeky Tiki Torches
Tiki torches are distinctive and can give any pool deck a beachy, relaxed ambience. However, ensure that you opt for high-quality products that will last. Opt for torches comprised of high-quality grass or copper with wired-in lighting as an alternative to an authentic flame.
Highlight Water Features
Bring any water features built into your pool or its immediate surroundings to the forefront, to show off your distinctly dynamic poolscape at all hours. Such features can set water into motion and allow any surrounding light to bounce off and dance on the ripples and eddies created. A waterfall, for example, can be lit from underneath for a dramatic effect. Alternatively, a larger wash of light from above would be more subtle.
Functional Lighting
Most pools don’t exist in isolation and are surrounded by complementary features like grills and seating areas. These areas must be well-lit in order to make outdoor entertainment convenient after dark. Despite the functional nature of this lighting, it can be customized to achieve maximum aesthetic appeal.
Nestle downturned lights into the structure of a pergola to wash the outdoor room it shelters in a warm glow. Another idea is to use upturned lights at the base of its pillars, to highlight its structure and anchor it as a focal point in the landscape. Fairy lights draped across its beams can foster a festive atmosphere. Undercap lights tucked within the edges of capstones can light seat walls, fire pits, and counters in an elegant way. A sleek light fitted into the riser of each step to illuminate the one below it can make a hardscape feature appear more modern.
The title image features an outdoor living space utilizing Umbriano pavers.
