Transforming an Outdoor Space with Up and Down Lighting

Up and down lighting fixtures, by and large, make for some of the most spectacular alfresco illumination solutions. In a previous guide, we explained that these solutions carefully balance task and ambient lighting. When it comes to outdoor spaces, this balance can be dramatically calming and even have transformative effects.

If you are just starting to landscape or design your garden, how big a role lighting can play may surprise you. While static spotlights and solar lamps can offer pleasant ambiances, up and down illumination may help transform things even further.

In this guide, we will look at a few ways to revolutionise your external lighting.

Bring Out Your Natural Tones

Your garden and outdoor spaces are, of course, natural areas. Therefore, it stands to reason that you may wish to accentuate natural colours and features. Browns, greens, bronzes, terracottas – earthy and verdant shades are out in force.

With the right up and down lighting fixture, you can help to highlight or showcase your favourite touches. The Double Beam LED Wall Light in Brass in our catalogue, an LED wall light in brass, may be of particular benefit.

This wall light helps to illuminate natural colours around the garden and makes its own impact. Easy to blend into the rustic cladding and amongst the greenery, this up and down light takes enough attention away from itself.

When installing up and down lighting in an outdoor area, it makes sense to highlight shrubs, trees and plant life. Ultimately, if your goal is to showcase the beauty of the alfresco, lighting is an asset in helping to point the way.

Our SW3103BRA up down wall light makes the perfect complement amid tall plants. Nestled away amongst small trees and climbing ivy, too, you can create the perfect ‘welcome’.

It may even be a prudent idea to ‘light the way for your guests through the greenery. Wall lights can carefully keep things bright and visible while never taking away too much focus.

Your garden area is there to be celebrated. While not all of us may wish to put so much emphasis on greenery, the Double Beam LED Wall Light in Brass can provide a balance.

Of course, this lighting option also stands well as a feature piece on its own. Brassy colours can stand out well amongst milder shades and less dominant tones. However, it will pay for you to be careful not to overdo the palette. If all else fails, many ideas are available through resources such as Pinterest to help inspire you.

An up and down light can be beneficial in highlighting smaller groups of pots and plants. Or, you may choose to place trees and shrubs in front of these lights as a mild highlight. It may be a safer option, overall, than to wash with light completely.

Welcome the Seasons

Depending on the style or look of up and down lighting you choose, you can help to welcome in specific seasons. The Double Beam LED Wall Light in Black, for example, is our gentle, black wall light. This option blends in well with deeper shades and is calming and soothing to help create an external winter promenade.

As the autumn slowly folds into winter, your garden and outdoor areas will start to change colour. The gold, brassy tones of the autumn will fade into colder hues. If you are fortunate, snow and frost will add touches of white and blue to your space. However, even without rain, sleet or ice, the weather will turn the sky to a duller shade. That means you should, ideally, consider swapping in tonally-influenced wall lighting.

Consider, too, that the nights are long during winter and that we will spend much less time outside. Your lighting solutions during these months should therefore take on more of a calming practicality. It is unlikely you may be up to much entertaining outdoors, short of building an occasional snowman!

Therefore, a simple, unassuming up and down wall light can help to bring safe illumination to your outdoor zones. These pieces are not especially there to create a distraction, more to enhance the atmosphere. What’s more, less dramatic lighting in this season can help to create softer, more charming scenes. If you have ever wanted to photograph your own festive greetings cards, you could position the Double Beam LED Wall Light in Black range to set the stage.

You may not wish to swap up and down lighting out from season to season. This is understandable. However, softer, less striking installations will effectively carry you through the warmer seasons, too. If you care less about creating features and more about adjusting tones to the weather, consider less striking choices.

As seasonal complements, it may benefit you to change LED bulbs in your fittings. You may wish to create warmer cascades in the winter, for example. However, many people choose warm hues and glow effects during the hotter months, too. This side of things is all a matter of taste!

Complement, Don’t Over-Illuminate

There is such a risk as over-flooding your garden or outdoor area with light. For example, if you already have high-intensity beams marking out taller trees, balancing them out makes sense. In addition, when setting up and down wall lights, you must make sure to give them space.

For example, it will not pay for you to install up and down lighting too close to security lamps. These lights are, of course, generally used for safety purposes. Therefore, their bulbs are likely to be of high intensity. Adorning these fixtures with wall lights alongside is going to over-egg the pudding.

The same can apply to spotlight installations. You may already have spotlights arranged around your garden or patio where people sit and relax. To maintain that relaxing atmosphere, try to keep said lighting fairly isolated.

Drawing too much attention to these areas, or even to shrubbery close by, is going to be overwhelming. The key to using wall lights alongside existing features is, therefore, to go sparingly.

Unfortunately, there is no guaranteed formula behind where you should place your wall lights for the best effect. That is always going to be down to your specific outdoor plan and design. However, you can make enough of a statement with up and down lights without creating glare.

Unassuming wall light designs, such as the Double Beam LED Wall Light in Rustic Finish, can blend in perfectly while creating gentle, lit scenes. Positioned along the perimeters of your garden, for example, you can still give your more intense lighting centre stage.

This also means that there are no areas where there is abject darkness. Try not to focus all of your light in one central place or just with a security bulb. That could leave zones, such as those close to trees and shrubs, with little in the way of highlight.

Ultimately, it is all about creating balance! Sometimes, you need to keep your wall lights away from the ‘crowd’ to create the best looks and results.

Backlight Features and Favourite Spots

Now, let’s consider using your wall lights as feature pieces. We refer to using these lights to create feature spaces and zones.

As you may create feature walls inside of the home, you may wish to make features in your garden, too. A good example may be specific flowerbeds or topiary. We have mentioned above that wall lighting is fantastic for highlighting natural tones.

However, consider using up and down lighting sparingly to create boundaries. You may wish to keep portions of your garden in darkness but instead draw attention to a particular water feature.

Positioning wall lights such as the timeless Double Beam LED Wall Light in Stainless Steel as signposts can create an almost ‘museum-like’ atmosphere. If you want to showcase outdoor art or a specific line of plants, let a wall light present them. Again, as above, you will ideally need to be careful with grouping too many lighting options too close together.

Your favourite spot in the garden may simply be a bench or table! Regardless, a simple, unassuming up and down light can change the way you see it. For seating and feature pieces, they are also amazingly practical.

Of course, if you wish to highlight garden ornaments or features, try to choose the best lighting colour to fit. Wooden benches and chairs will likely respond well to brass and rustic wall lights. Water features or statuettes, or bird baths, may respond best to stainless steel. In fact, stainless steel tends to be a great all-around fit.

For greenery, consider more natural colours (such as the rustic). We would recommend a black wall light in circumstances where you are lighting a back wall. Or, you may be taking attention away from intense lighting elsewhere in the garden, as discussed above.

As you can imagine, with up and down lights, you need to position your items directly underneath or above. Pot plants and individual items, therefore, stand to benefit hugely from careful positioning. However, you can also install wall lights, so they gently showcase a zone.

Gazebos are a fantastic garden and outdoor features. Perfect for socialising all year round, these are spaces where, traditionally, we’re likely to entertain our loved ones. Therefore, as the nights draw in, it makes perfect sense to illuminate the area as much as possible.

However, a mistake that some people make is placing their lights too low down. Some choose to install flooring spotlights. Others, meanwhile, may choose lanterns. Coupled together, these options can work well. However, they do not always create the atmosphere you’re looking for.

Wall lights – especially up and down lighting – can effectively fill both sides of the vertical space. This is because they balance the amount of light delivered both up and down. There is no need for full beams or lanterns with a handful of ups and down lights bordering a gazebo.

In addition, you will also discover that you create a warmer glow. Light isn’t travelling horizontally to bounce off all of your furniture. It is travelling to the ceiling, and down to the floor, in a perimeter style. That allows you and your guests to be the focal points and create a gentle welcome for your lighting.

There is certainly nothing wrong with lanterns or spotlighting. Used correctly, they can create some unique atmospheres. However, wall lights can build up to create a perimeter, keeping a nice, even balance.

Again, there are plenty of excellent examples online where this technique is used to spectacular effect. All outdoor spaces are different! However, when you balance the upper and lower light in an area like a gazebo, you create a nice, even glow. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘wash’, and once you have one of your own, it is easy to see why.

Too many wall lights around the gazebo could lead to a slightly overpowering atmosphere, however. Therefore, consider going as sparing as you can.

Unlimited Options

Up and down wall lights are fantastic as they are both practical and atmospheric. The difference in the ambient upper lighting and lower task lighting offers endless flexibility. These lights are not only popular in interior design but are also increasingly popular outside too.

However, that is not to say they are purely used to highlight architecture or to mark zones. You can use up and down lighting to wash through gazebos and entertaining zones. You can create an outdoor museum in your garden. You may simply wish to add a little more balance to a garden already brimming with security glare.

In any case, it is a sage idea to take a look at a variety of up and down lights available to you. Arrow Electrical presents a stunning range of up and down fittings in four stunning finishes. We hope our guide has helped to inspire your lighting arrays. Don’t forget, the way you illuminate and dress your outdoor space should always be unique to you!