Sizzle before the Steak

 So I know we haven't finished planting out the bed beside the sidewalk that I haven't finished pouring yet, but Kelley wanted to get the landscape lighting up anyway. I mean, she's not wrong, we ordered everything we needed so since the parts were all there we could throw it all up there. 

Lighting up a sidewalk that doesn't exist yet

Turned out pretty good!

Uplights and path lights

At night you can really tell it's working

Low voltage landscape lighting starts with a transformer. I had to plug the new transformer into the new outlet that we ran before I started pouring concrete. We bought a 300 watt transformer from Amazon, along with 100 ft of 14 guage low voltage wire. I had to run low voltage wire through the conduit with the rest of the wire before we started pouring concrete. We planned to put 2 uplights on each of the 3 feature trees (only 2 of which are now planted, the red and green japanese maple), and path lights that match the mission style light we have over the front door. We didn't buy enough to do the path on the other side of the stairs, that would have to come later. It's also important when installing the lights, don't trust the clip on connectors that come with the lights. We picked up some waterproof wire nuts from Amazon too, they have a blob of caulk on the inside that activates when you poke the wires through. 

To size your transformer, you have to add the total number of lights you want to add, then plan 20 watts per light. The longer the wire is, you'll also need to add more watts for that if you're planning. We thought it would take 12 devices, so we needed 240 watts, but since the chain would end up being over 100 ft long we wanted to go a little stronger. The 300 watt transformer ended up being the right size for us, there was no loss by the end of the line. That was also the most expensive component.

In total, the transformer, 200 ft of 14 ga wire, 8 path lights, and 7 up lights ended up costing us about $400, but the sizzle that it adds is priceless. Adding landscape lighting is a genius way to add curb appeal. Here's the finished product:

That's lit, as the kids say