Jennifer and Carl enjoy entertaining their family and friends, so they designed their dream home to accommodate large gatherings both indoors and outdoors. Their upscale Northern California home features an expansive outdoor space with a dining area, fireplace, and pool.
THE CHALLENGE
Without landscape lighting, Jennifer and Carl couldn’t enjoy the full potential of their new outdoor area in the evenings. The space was too dark and lacked proper path lighting, up lights, and, decorative lights to make the area inviting and extend its usefulness for entertaining and relaxing after the sun sets.
“When we built our home, we did not include outdoor landscape lighting because we were focused on hardscape, pavers, and the pool,” said Jennifer. “But sitting inside on a beautiful evening, you see this out your window and your instinct is: I don't want to be in here I want to be out there.” They turned to Andy Thomas, owner of Viewpoint Lighting to design a lighting plan that would bring life to their outdoor space at night.
THE SOLUTION
To achieve maximum night use and add drama to the space, Thomas recommended the FX Luxor ZDC lighting system. The Luxor ZDC offers all the functionality of the Luxor®ZD, and adds the ability to create 30,000 custom lighting colors to the landscape. Thomas said, “With zoning, dimming and color, we can group lights together to make them more or less intense and we can shift colors whichever direction we want.” Until now, custom color lighting systems have not been practical for residential use because they’re complicated or very expensive, and designed for commercial applications. But with Luxor ZDC, it’s easy for homeowners to create and manage colors, and also adjust them on the fly with their smartphones and the Luxor Wi-Fi app.
Thomas said, “As a designer I'm trying to create vignettes - little scenes that stand out, so at night you don't just want to sit inside and look at the yard, you want to go outside.”
THE RESULT
“Lighting was an afterthought when we built our house, but once it was installed, it doubled our home space,” said Carl. “The app is user friendly. It's a one-touch type of thing with the ability to change our backyard into any color theme.” Theming allows the couple to create a setting for an outdoor movie night, adjust for the season, or get festive for holidays. “It makes the property amazing. The lighting can be elegant, classy, and beautiful. There is definitely something different between this lighting and anything I have ever seen,” said Jennifer. To learn more about this project view the video.
