Exterior lighting is one of the more cost effective, yet more dramatic alterations that you can make about your household and usually a walkover and safe to set up, calling for only a few tools and some rudimental Do-It-Yourself knowledge. Exterior lighting is normally established along walkways, steps, and stairs, pointing up at trees, walls, and fences.
Landscape lighting can be sensational in its beauty and supplies a safe, secure and welcoming ambience. Put in properly the attractiveness that it brings out is without doubt. With good exterior lighting your dwelling becomes the "pride" of the neighborhood after dark.
Out-of-door lighting is used to bring trees and flowers to life after sundown, highlighting special areas around your home, light paths and stairs for safety and security. Not to mention it is a marvellous way to improve the value of your dwelling and to add and safety at nightime. As an accessory outside lighting is as functional as it is ornamental, improving the safety and security of your household, since the homeowner and family can move about the property in safely at nightime. Outdoor lighting is an easy improvement that will make a large difference in the safety as well as the security of your home as well its visual effect after dark and is safer to operate than conventional mains lighting. Outdoor lighting is usually a prudent decision, but especially about water features, which present a distinct danger after sunset and is perfect for highlighting footpaths.
Now that manufacturing systems have improved and costs are dropping , solar lighting has become the red hot product in the landscaping industry. It is a fast easy option that can brighten up your yard decor or landscape. An additional benefit of solar outside lighting is that it is easy to install, and the installer wouldn’t have to dig under their driveway to run wires. One problem with solar landscape lighting is that you may not feel it is very effective beause they give off very little light and get dimmer as the battery runs out. Yet most solar lighting can be as bright as traditional low-voltage.
When designing your new garden landscaping project, it is paramount to specify the number of lights involved. You can always supplement permanent lighting with tabletop lanterns and solar landscape lighting tucked among plantings to cast a glow around your garden. In nature, most lighting, usually, is supplied by the sun, regulated by clouds and reduced by vegetation. Light, or its absence can dramatically change the visual appearance of your gardening designs. A decent trick is to play around with your timing and using different systems to alter the ambience over the evening for instance set for evening, not too dark, and with a ruddy orange ambiance.
David Kearsley
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/outside-lighting-tips-to-transform-your-garden-114813.html
#1 by life is like a box of chocolates on October 24th, 2009
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I wrote a short story for school. Please read and tell me what you think!!!!?
Imagine
I gazed out of the window, my eyes immediately transfixed on the beautiful bird outside. It stood in the centre of the lawn, its feathers glistening with the light from the sun. Its wings shone with an array of colours and at the tip of each one there was a thin gold tint. I stared vividly as it ruffled its head into one of its wings, sometimes completely vanishing out of view and then reappearing with chunks of feathers in its beak. It almost seemed like it was dancing and I tried to picture it surrounded by people watching it perform as if it were some endangered creature. I pressed my face against the glass wishing desperately that I could be outside in the sun with the bird than stuck in here. I felt like it had heard my thoughts because the next minute the bird stopped and inquisitively walked closer towards the window and its bead like eyes stared through the glass at me. Then all of a sudden its delicate wings transformed into much larger ones like an aeroplane and it took off. I waved at it through the window feeling guilty for having disturbed it . ‘I’m sorry,‘ I whispered quietly. I glanced back into the room where I stood . The ceiling towered above me and the pink flowery patterns of the walls matched my dress. I tugged on my pink bow that was in my hair almost wishing that if I did this the bird would come back.
“Sweet heart, why don’t you come sit back down,” my mother called. I walked from the window and sat down, adjusting my bow so that it fell into my hands. I dangled it between two of my fingers watching it as it fell helplessly to the ground. I did this several times until I got bored hoping that one time it would not want to fall to the ground but instead fly around the room. I picked up the piece of ribbon and looked up to see my sister making faces at me from the other side of the room. My mummy told me once that you should not make faces because when the wind changes you stay like that forever. I giggled as I pictured my sister looking like that when she was 50.
-30 years later-
“Mummy, I can see it , I can see it.”
“I saw it first though”
“No you didn’t”
“Yes I did.”
“ Well I said I’d seen it first.”
I looked up from the map that was spread across the seat on the other side of the car. I noticed the top of the house appearing over the trees ahead.
“ Look it doesn’t really matter who saw it first you can both see it now,” I said, hoping that this would stop them arguing. I turned the corner of the road and saw an opening to a drive ahead of me. I decided this was probably the right one and swerved the car down it. Ahead, stood the most beautiful house I had ever seen. It had been so long since I had come here with my parents, when I was little that I had forgotten how beautiful and huge it was. I stopped the car outside the front of the house. I looked closer at the house and realised that it looked much older and messier then I remembered with streams of ivy woven round the windows.
I knocked on the door hoping someone would answer. I picked up my youngest who looked like she was about to fall asleep and rested her in my arms.
“ Maybe no one lives here anymore,” I said.
My other daughter looked up at me with a magical smile. “Someone will come”, she said.
We waited a little bit longer but no one came. As I walked away from the door I heard a car driving up in the distance. A young women about the same age as me stepped out.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I was wondering if I could look round your garden with my children. I used to come here when I was younger with my family and me and my sister would play in the garden outside.”
“ Oh yes, of course but it might be a little untidy because I have only arrived recently and the last person did not keep it in very good condition.”
We walked round the back of the house and onto the lawn. Memories suddenly rushed into my mind. I remembered the pond that was near the bottom of the lawn and the time that me and my sister had been looking for frogs and one ended up on the back of my dress. I had hated frogs and the next few times we came I had been terrified to go near the pond. I also remembered the huge apple tree opposite us which we would climb and eat all the apples. I pointed out these places to my children and they rushed round them with excitement. I suddenly remembered the day when we had come here last and I saw the bird sitting on the lawn. I asked the lady if any of the last residents had kept any birds. She said she didn’t know. She asked if I would like a cup of tea and so she went back inside the house.
“ What did the bird look like,” my older daughter asked.
“ I can’t remember but it was really beautiful, but I don’t think it will ever come back.”
“What do you mean” she asked looking at me strangely. “ It’s right in front of us”
#2 by siamesedreamzero on October 24th, 2009
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I love it!! The visuals were great and I liked the story. Also the end was funny. It vaguely reminded me of Harry Potter.
I’d give it a 9/10
I think it reminded me of HP because I though of professor Mcgonagal when she was watching the Dursleys as a cat.
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#3 by mourningsend on October 24th, 2009
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alot of explination for a bird might be trying a little too hard
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#4 by Aubrey A on October 24th, 2009
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I liked it. It had great visuals, and almost a mysterious tone to it. You could hear the background music as you got lost in the story. Besides a few grammatical errors, I think it is great! I wish there were a whole novel to go with it. LOL!
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#5 by Berry on October 24th, 2009
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It’s beautiful, I like the vocab u used in describing.
But there’s something with the ‘bird ‘ plot..I don’t know what exactly..I think you got a bit carried away out of your main point
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#6 by jake k on October 24th, 2009
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Brilliant. A very pleasant well-told story.
2 things:
1 "Then all of a sudden its delicate wings transformed into much larger ones like an aeroplane and it took off". Aeroplanes don’t have wings that transform in to larger ones. Though I like the sense of size that this simile produces.
2 How does her daughter know that the bird before them is the same as the one 30 years previously? The main character has mentioned nothing specific about its appearance that would make it so instantly recognisable. If you do describe something remarkable about it it would deal with this problem and give the bird a sense of character that would make it stand out from all the other potential birds in the world.
I hope this is useful to you. It is a very good story. You deserve full marks.
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