Seven Outdoor Lighting Tips for Halloween in La Costa, CA

Seven Outdoor Lighting Tips for Halloween in La Costa, CA

Halloween is the second most popular holiday celebrated across the country, with children dressed up in costumes going door-to-door to collect as much candy as they can, it makes total sense. With so many potential visitors, you might be thinking of ways you can spruce up your exterior.

The best home improvement projects are the ones that give you a lot of bang for your buck, especially when it comes to holiday decorating that won’t always be up. Exterior lighting is the way to go when giving your home a spooky upgrade for the season.

We’ve collected our best outdoor lighting tips to help you plan the best, creepiest front yard for all the trick or treaters in your La Costa area neighborhood. 

1.  Brighten Decorations

Front yards are the perfect place to add some spooky elements to your Halloween décor, but they’re worthless if you can’t see them in the dark. Especially since the majority of the holiday is spent in those dark hours. 

If you’re going to take the time to add gravestones, bones, ghosts, or spiderwebs to your exterior, at least make sure you can see them.

Adding mini floodlights near your decor will illuminate them for the whole block. You can customize how much or little light is on them to get a really unique look. Just make sure everything is secured in place, so your lights don’t end up pointing to nothing if the decor is blown out of place. 

2.  Focus on Walkways 

Since you’ll likely have so many trick or treaters, which are mainly children, it’s a good idea to make sure your walkways are completely visible. The last thing you want is for a little goblin to come to your La Costa home to get a treat, but leave with an injury because they tripped on your dark sidewalk. 

The key to good outdoor path lighting is placing small lights every few feet on each side of the path. This allows the walker to know where to go and see obstacles in their way. It also adds a beautiful ambiance that can’t be beaten. 

3.  Think About Shadows 

Normally in outdoor landscape lighting, you’re trying to illuminate the space and avoid shadows. Halloween outdoor lighting has a slightly different objective and can greatly benefit from a few added shadows. 

Utilizing shadows can help build that anticipation and spooky feeling by keeping the visitor guessing about what is really there, and what is lingering right out of view. The best way to get effectively scary shadows is to create all different shapes and sizes for a well-rounded picture. 

Creating intention shadows is a tricky art, expect to do some tinkering to get things just right for your eerie landscape. 

4.  Highlight Tree Branches

Highlighting a tree is a common strategy in developing an exterior lighting plan. These magnificent plants are often the highlight of any yard and are beautiful even at night. They can be one of the most important parts of your Halloween setup in La Costa. 

Try changing up the angle in which your tree spotlights are facing to create more ghostly branches than normal. This amps up the scare factor and makes the whole yard feel like a haunted forest. You can also make the tree look much bigger this way, even further adding to the visual illusion.

Hanging decorations like ghosts or other monsters from the branches will also take the whole tree up another level.  

5.  Change the Colors 

There’s no need to stick within the traditional white lights that are found in most outdoor lighting setups throughout the year. On the contrary, adding in some color can be just the thing to bring your holiday decorating to life. 

Obviously, orange and purple lights are a good choice to represent the true Halloween colors. Even changing your porch light bulbs makes your home feel festive. However, you can also add a variety of colors while still sticking to the ominous theme. Think red areas where blood would be, or dark colors to make things seen while still creepy. 

Colors aren’t often thought about in lighting, which is a shame because they add such dimension to a space.  

6.  Unusual Locations 

While you’re thinking out of the box with the color of your lighting, start doing the same with the location of the bulbs as well. There are so many possibilities in Halloween decorations, let your creativity fly. 

Layering all of your lighting options helps to give you a full design, instead of leaving it feeling half-done with just one source. 

Think about adding lights inside of decor items, like a cauldron for example. This brings focus but isn’t quite as basic as a floodlight (which we love too.). You can also add a small light inside of a skeleton for a spooky effect. Whatever the case might be, Halloween is the perfect time to do all the strange things you can think of to transform your La Costa home into a place of nightmares.

7.  Add Unique Shaped Bulbs 

Lights these days come in all different shapes and sizes, especially string lights. Halloween lighting is the perfect time to add a few strands of fun, holiday-themed figures to your front porch. 

These are some of the best ways to decorate for the holiday if you don’t want to go too far into the gruesome and scary route. Some cute, friendly ghosts are fun for trick or treaters, but won’t leave them crying and with nightmares. They are also much simpler to install, take down, and store as well. 

Outdoor Lighting Tips for Halloween in La Costa

Even if you’re not about to go all out for the holiday, adding a few Halloween lights can make a big difference in helping you feel festive and fun. Decorating doesn’t have to be a big, drawn-out ordeal. The smallest additions can make the biggest impact. 

When you follow these outdoor lighting tips, you’re sure to have the best-decorated house in your La Costa neighborhood. Every visitor will feel the range of Halloween emotions from excitement to scared silly. 

If you’re interested in getting some professional help with your outdoor landscape lighting needs, contact us today.

Learn More About Our 3-Day Outdoor Lighting Trial