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Maximizing Investments: Illuminating Your Home

Maximizing Investments: Illuminating Your Home

  • "Maximizing Investments: Illuminating Your Home" originally appeared in the April 2024 "20 Under 40" issue of COMO Magazine.
What the Home Pros Know with Austin Mcbride

Take a moment and envision your home with the landscape of your dreams: perfectly maintained, well balanced, and naturally drawing focus to your front door. Now picture it again at night, coming home from dinner or hosting guests. Many of you may see lighting throughout the landscape illuminating your path — you’re on the right track. If you’re picturing complete darkness, this article is for you, too.   

Outdoor lighting is a feature that can invigorate your existing landscape or elevate your upcoming project to the next level. For many of us, our home is our biggest investment and our landscape is an extension of that so maximizing our usage of the space is paramount. Proper lighting highlights key features, adds security, increases functionality, and enhances the overall enjoyment of a space. At Rost Inc., we often use lighting to highlight points of interest like specimen trees and boulders in the landscape or interesting architecture on the home. This adds definition to the space and shows off key features that make your home special.

There are a number of pitfalls to avoid when designing your lighting package such as the runway effect: too much symmetry, or lighting overkill that overexposes an area. Pool areas and patios flourish with lighting systems in place; maximizing usage and enhancing enjoyment of the space. Mobile apps make controlling your system as easy as changing a song. These areas can benefit from the color fixtures that allow you to choose any shade imaginable to set the mood or establish a theme for events or holidays. We can also use fixtures to eliminate dimly lit areas allowing you to feel more secure at home. 

Aerial view of a backyard pool at night illuminated by accent lighting.
Aerial view of a backyard pool at night illuminated by accent lighting.

The landscape lighting industry has seen a renaissance in the past few years with the rise in quality and affordability of LED fixtures and lights and smart controllers. Lines of integrated fixtures are now available that wick heat away from the LED panels and double the life of the LEDs over their non-integrated counterparts. This eliminates the need for routine maintenance and bulb replacement that have plagued halogen bulb systems for decades. The integrated fixtures come with a 10-year manufacturer warranty that ensures your system stays relevant for years to come.

Lighting is a growing trend in the landscape industry that will only continue to become more accessible as the technology progresses. It has already eliminated the short-lived and limited soffit fixtures through its versatility and ease of use. This is complemented by the minimally invasive install process and quick turnaround time for new systems.

The ever-expanding product lines ensures that whether it’s path lights, cans, wall lights, or washes, we’ve got you covered, and all you’ll need is to find someone with the design and install experience to make it a reality. 


Austin McBride
Austin McBride

Austin is a Sales Manager for irrigation, lighting, fencing, and estate gates at Rost Landscaping. He is also a Professional Water Witcher. When he is not on the job he enjoys hunting, fishing, raising livestock, and be being a full-time family chauffeur.

Rost Landscaping

(573) 445-4465 | rostlandscaping.com

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