Landscape lighting: Five ways to shine

If you're adding outdoor lights, here are five types you can consider, according to Kyle McKelvy, president of Oregon Outdoor Lighting in Oregon City:

Post lights: These offer a decorative way to provide light for a well-traveled path, stairs or steps that will be used at night. For the light itself, prices start at $100 on up.

Low-voltage lighting: LED lighting, low-voltage lights, path lights, spot lights, up lights, accent lights and eyebrow lights all generally fall in this category, which offers the widest range of options.

For the DIYer, prices start at $30 per light and go to $100 or more. This doesn't include wire, connections to get the light in the ground, the landscape lighting wire transformer or labor. Starting price for a professional grade fixture that's installed is $250 per light and can go up to $500 per light.

String lights: Flickering white lights can be added to tree branches. Prices range depending on the length of the string lights (generally 10 to 50 feet in length) and quality, but generally start at $10 or $25 for commercial grade.

Underwater lighting: This is a sub-category of low-voltage or LED lighting, with the difference being that these fixtures need to be watertight.

As such, prices generally start at $50, though a high quality colored light can run as high as $400. Professional grade installed starts at $400.

-- Kris Wetherbee

View original post here:
Landscape lighting: Five ways to shine