Summer is finally here and the swimming pool in your home will take center stage once again.
As a proud pool owner, you need to find ways to make your pool a safe and inviting space throughout the day and in the night. During the day, you won't have to do much. What majestic body of water doesn't catch the eye in an outdoor living space (or indoor one), after all?
When the sun sets, though, you’ll need to light up your pool area to ensure it remains a safe and aesthetically pleasing outdoor space. With that in mind, this article will explore the benefits of lighting your pool and six effective pool lighting ideas for your swimming pool and its surrounding areas.
Benefits of Lighting Your Swimming Pool
The primary benefits of lighting your swimming pool are aesthetic and practical.
Tasteful lighting can make your pool area a place to gather with friends and family. You can also use your lighting to create an ambiance. Lighting, after all, affects mood. Soft light, in particular, makes the environment more relaxing.
Moreover, by illuminating specific pool features, such as waterfalls or landscaping, you can highlight the unique elements of your pool, adding to its visual appeal.
The secondary benefit of lighting your pool area is the health and safety element. People are less likely to get into accidents in the pool or fall from the pool deck into the water when they can see where they’re going.
With this in mind, let’s look at six pool lighting ideas you can implement to enjoy the perfect pool experience this summer.
1. Shine Lights From Above
Lighting your swimming pool from above is the most practical way to illuminate your pool and the surrounding area.
The most common way of illuminating your pool is by mounting your lights to surrounding standing structures like pergolas or nearby trees. For example, you can attach our bronze CAST classic niche light under the eaves of a building or another surface. You can use our CAST Classic Tree Lights similarly.
Directional lights allow you to highlight select parts of your pool and the surrounding area. You can play around with the positioning of the pool lights to create the perfect ambiance for your pool area.
2. Light Up Your Pool Deck
A pool is rarely a standalone feature. In many homes, the pool is surrounded by decking, which is the perfect spot to gather, relax and enjoy the day. Lighting up your pool decking will mean you can relax around the pool at night, even if you decide not to swim.
There are various ways you can illuminate your pool decking. For example, you can use niche lighting over your deck. Also, consider using dimmers, so you can set the ambiance for the evening.
You can complement the electric lighting with fire features like lanterns, tiki torches, or statement fire bowls. The flickering flames add to the ambiance of the pool. At the same time, the flames will provide a welcome warmth around the deck, making it cozy for pool parties in the evening hours.
3. Illuminate Your Path
The location of your pool will impact the type of lighting you use to illuminate the area. You should take advantage of tall objects around the pool for illumination.
For example, you can tactfully use outdoor lights to highlight the path or area surrounding your pool. Recessed floor lighting, like our Recessed Mini narrow Spot Up Light, can be used to illuminate your yard.
You can also install pathway lights spaced around 6 to 8 feet apart to illuminate paths or strategically placed in the shrubbery to illuminate the surrounding area. You can see how this has been done in the image above.
4. Highlight Your Stairs
If you have a raised pool area, you should consider installing ground lights to illuminate those stairs. With this approach, you won't just nail the aesthetics. You'll ensure the safety of your visitors, too.
How many times have we all tripped over a step we didn't see, after all? Probably more times than we can all count.
To avoid these unnecessary accidents around your pool, install small low-voltage lights on the sides or beneath each step. The lights improve visibility and add to the ambiance.
If you want to add a dramatic effect around your pool, you can position your step lights to cast a soft glow on the water's surface. That will then create a beautiful reflection that catches people’s attention.
5. Use Underwater Lighting for Your Water Features
You may be lucky and have other water features surrounding your pool, like a natural pond, fountain, or stream. These water features can become a highlight of the gardens surrounding your pool at night.
Our CAST underwater lights can be placed in your surrounding water features to illuminate the water from below. With these lighting fixtures, you can make the color of your water stand out. These lights, however, are not suitable for swimming pools and are only to be used in water features surrounding your pool.
6. Illuminate The Surrounding Trees
One of the pool lighting ideas we talked about involved installing lights in trees adjacent to your pool to illuminate your pool from above. In this case, though, you don’t install lights in the trees but turn your trees into a nocturnal feature with uplighting.
Illuminating the trees surrounding your pool will help create an inviting ambiance.
You can use a soft flood of light that makes the trees seem bigger than they are. That's a great strategy for portraying grandeur. So, when your visitors reach the pool, that calmness and serenity that comes with seeing a still body of water will make them feel relaxed.
Uplighting works best when the outdoor lighting around your pool balances the tree lighting. Achieve this look by placing subtle lighting around your deck and pool. An excellent option would be our new Bluetooth color-changing spotlight. These uplights allow you to illuminate your trees and also give you the option of adding pops of color as seen in the image above!
Wrapping Up
Your swimming pool is an important fixture of your home, especially during those hot summer months. Light up your swimming pool to give it the attention it deserves. Good lighting will make the pool aesthetically pleasing and ensure your visitors' safety.
This article shared six outdoor pool lighting ideas. Shining the lights from above to highlight your pool, lighting up your pool deck, illuminating the path leading to the structure and the nearby stairs.
Choose one or two ideas from these pool lighting options, and you won't be the only one smiling once the lights are installed. Even your visitors will be impressed. The downside (or upside?): expect more self-invitations from friends and family.
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Recessed Mini Narrow Spot Up Light (1 Watt)
