3 Outdoor Step Lighting Ideas For Safety & Ambience

One of the huge benefits of landscape lighting is safety. When you properly light up your outdoor spaces, you make them significantly safer to navigate. That’s a big deal. After all, the last thing that you ever want is for you or a loved one to lose their footing and fall while moving around your property.

Outdoor step lighting is crucial for safety. 

Any time that you are navigating stairs in the dark, you want to make sure that you can see exactly where you are going so that you don’t risk falling.

This is why outdoor lighting for stairs and steps is so critical.

Here are a few exterior step lighting ideas to make your space safer, which in turn makes it more usable.

Use Downlighting for Landscape Step Lighting

One idea for outdoor stair lighting that might not always be thought about is to use a downlighting technique. People often think of downlighting for illuminating a landscape for aesthetic purposes. While this can certainly be done, downlighting can also be highly functional when used to light up a space that needs navigation.

Downlighting is exactly what it sounds like. The light fixtures are mounted higher up, such as in a tree, so that the light shines down.

This is a really great way to illuminate a set of steps well enough to be able to navigate them safely.

Overall, we just really love the effect that downlighting achieves and it is one of our favorite lighting techniques. It’s just the right amount of lighting without being overbearing.

We also like to use downlighting to light pathways in a subtle, attractive, and effective way.

Built-in Patio Step Lights or Deck Lights

Another way to illuminate steps is to build lighting into them.

Step lighting can be built right into hardscaping or decks, depending upon the application. If it’s a stone patio, this might involve drilling small holes in which the light fixtures are inserted. Or, it could mean installing lights underneath each step of a deck.

It all depends upon what you’re trying to achieve and what kind of stairs you have in your space. But homeowners like to have these built-in step lights create a sort of path to follow.

Add Rail Lighting to Your Outdoor Stairs

Another outdoor stair lighting idea is rail lighting. We can install lighting underneath or on the side of a rail that is part of an outdoor staircase.

This can help to illuminate where people need to hold on, and will also help in navigating a nighttime space.

Make Your Outdoor Space Safer with Landscape Step Lighting

If your outdoor space has steps, it’s important that you are thinking about ways that you can make it safe to navigate, even after the sun has gone down. Falls on steps can be incredibly dangerous in the nighttime hours when people can’t see where they are going.

It doesn’t take much more than a minor misstep to get injured.

When you add exterior step lighting, you increase the safety of your space for not only you and your family but also any guests that come to your home. There is a serious peace of mind factor that comes with that.

At Mid South Outdoor Lighting & Audio, we understand how important it is to you that your outdoor spaces are safe, functional, and enjoyable. We create lighting designs that will help you to get the most possible use out of your outdoor living areas while keeping them safe to navigate.

Are you ready to create a secure, functional, and beautiful property at any hour of the day? If so, let’s meet and discuss some bright ideas.