What outdoor lighting is best for boosting a home's curb appeal?

A layered mix of soft uplighting on trees and facades, path lights along walkways, and a standout entryway fixture will do the most for your home's curb appeal.

Think about what happens to your house every night around 8 PM. You’ve put a lot of work into it. And all that landscaping, paint, and masonry fades into the shadow. It happens every night. All you can see pulling up into the driveway, and all others can see from the street, is what the porch light and the street lamp reach.

If you’re not sure where to begin, the front door is always a good place to start. A couple of well-chosen sconces or a pendant change the entire feel of an approach. You go from "I think this is the right house" to the feeling of coming home.

After that, you can add a few uplights. Aim one at the base of an ornamental tree, maybe 30 or 40 degrees off vertical, and suddenly there’s dimension where there wasn’t any before. The trunk catches the light and the canopy suddenly has shape. The same applies to your house’s facade, especially if it’s stone or brick. You’re not adding brightness so much as you’re adding depth.

If you want to complete the picture, you can add some path lights. A walkway with even, warm light along it reads as welcoming from fifty feet away. Plus, you and your guests will be a lot less likely to trip in the dark.

What ties this all together is color temperature. Choose warm white LEDs in the 2700K to 3000K range. These lights will render materials and foliage naturally without bleaching the color out of its surroundings. This is one of the easiest ways to avoid the most common mistake: overlighting.