As you stroll through your neighbourhood in the evening, you might notice a trend taking over new homes: recessed LED soffit lighting. While these downward-facing lights promise to highlight architectural features with a sleek, contemporary touch, they also contribute to a growing concern—light pollution. And, instead of promoting safety, they often create even more shadows around your home.
In your quest for curb appeal, this is one lighting trend you can skip. And what you should do instead.
The night as nature intended
The look of recessed soffit lighting has actually been trending for a few years. Terreeia and I have talked about it many times when we drive at night. But, it was brought to my attention again, by an email I received from a reader the other day:
Maria, I was hoping you could write a blog entry and/or do a youtube video about these harsh super bright white LEDs and the obsession people have with lighting their exteriors with these hideous lights in the name of ‘safety’.I’ve read a lot about the fallacy of these new LED lights being more safe. They actually create more contrast which creates more extreme shadows (where buglars can hide better). Also, we have a great ability to adjust to darkness with our eyes but the extreme white light against the backdrop of a dark night makes if very difficult for our eyes to make use of this keen ability.I miss the days when people had beautiful amber/gold outdoor lights lighting their entrance ways. Some still do have beautiful, artful lights on the outside of their homes but many have added these glaring, blinding, ugly, stress inducing lights that ruin the night time aesthetic but more importantly create light pollution and harm nocturnal wildlife.
She also sent me the following two fascinating articles that discuss light pollution:
The Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting
Outdoor recessed lighting vs. landscape lighting
Last year when I was in Edmonton, I snapped this photo of a house that was obnoxiously lit up and this is what she’s talking about.
The pairs of LED lights all around the perimeter of this house make it look like it’s a space ship about to land.
It’s actually hard for me to understand how anyone could find this look to be attractive because when I started searching online, there are many companies that proudly display examples of installations that look just like this one (above).
A better way to light your exterior
When I started noticing this everywhere, I was relieved that our new house (below) had small up lights that ‘washed’ the gables which attractively light up the house in the evening.
The only photo I have to illustrate this is last year’s holiday photo right after our new hardscaping had been installed in the Fall (below).
See the rest of this post here
Here’s what our house looks like now with the landscaping installed:
Here’s another example of what not to do but there are many more if you start searching.
And here are some examples of houses done right, with the right amount of ambient uplighting to wash over the exterior.
This is why lamps are better than recessed lighting
Uplighting is much more attractive than down lighting, as this post I found explains.
As I’ve mentioned many, many times on this blog, the same applies indoors. So, let’s all stop putting recessed lights in our living rooms.
Last week one of my followers went lamp shopping and tagged me on Instagram. In my messages she confided that she had booked a vacation rental for two months and couldn’t handle the lack of lamps in the evening so she stocked up at a local second hand store (below):
So smart! And exactly what I would have done if I had flown somewhere and found myself in the same situation as the following three posts illustrate.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you already know that when I book a vacation rental within driving distance, I always bring a minimum of 3 lamps (not a joke).
Glass gourd lamps go with everything (below). And the little on on the bottom right will often find it’s way into the kitchen.
Our Vacation Rental July 2021 (see what it looked like before I styled it up and added lamps)
Here’s another little house we rented in Campbell River. Yes I did bring throw pillows, accessories and the turquoise tray as well.
5 Simple Ways to Make your Air B&B Look Better (2020)
And here’s a photo of the same lamp you’ve seen twice in the kitchen of a house by the lake we rented just outside of Nelson:
The vacation rental in August 2022
Truly, if you get ambient lighting right most other design botches become pretty tolerable. And the same definitely goes for exteriors at night. Flooding the facade with soft uplights in the landscape and glowing decorative sconces is so much prettier than glaring down lights.
What do you think?
I’m also concerned about circadian health and the effect on wildlife of our urban light pollution. Is this an issue that is on your radar too?
And the fact that an intense spotlight (think of the theatre) is just as effective at taking everything that’s out of the spotlight out of view diminishes the argument for recessed lights for safety doesn’t it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you had a builder or trade make it seem like you simply must install soffit lighting?
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You an learn how to choose perfect timeless colour for all aspects of your exterior in my self guided Exterior Colour Selection Masterclass here.
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Related posts:
Turn off your Overhead Lights Forever (just like I did)
One more Reason to Skip Overhead Lighting Forever
Two Magical Lighting Ideas for Creating Atmosphere in a Kitchen Dining Area
Very timely as we’ve just gone through our exterior lighting exercise with our builder. We moved from an urban environment where almost every house had an excess of soffit, wall washing, etc. lights. It was so unattractive. We are building our home on a rural, waterfront property and as I did my research on what sort of exterior/deck lighting we should have I came across this website: https://darksky.org. They are an international organization leading the initiative on restoring the nighttime environment and have a lot of great guidance on how to help preserve our “dark skies”. They are also working with lighting manufacturers to certify dark-sky compliant lighting (those are the ones we chose to purchase). I do respectfully disagree on your up-lighting comment as it relates to outdoors; while it may be a prettier alternative exterior lighting should, in fact, be a shielded downlight in a low temperature (think maximum 300K but lower is better). A key point being, of course, that they should be placed at a reduced height and placed only where needed. So, when we reviewed the electrical plan for approval we rejected all the soffit and outdoor recessed lighting in favor of limited downlight wall sconces, barn light type fixtures and dimmers. The one exception is an outdoor chandelier for the covered seating area but we will mitigate that with lower kelvin amber bulbs. Our county is fortunate to have a designated dark-sky viewing area where you can truly appreciate the night sky with no light pollution plus they offer loads of educational opportunities. Very popular place to visit actually.
I agree with the type of downlight you’ve mentioned but in terms of lighting up the gables, my house has uplights that wash the soffits attractively which is what I’m talking about. Thanks for your thoughtful comment! Maria
Yes! Thank you for this info as well and the article Maria! I discovered Darksy.or (https://darksky.org/who-we-are/advocates/) and I love that there are scientists trying to get lighting engineers to understand this as it’s a very important topic. Anyone can be a Darksky advocate for free. I signed up and have access to webinars and lots of great information. Personally I feel that even 3000k is much too bright as I am a light sensitive person, so these LEDs give me migraines and all kinds of problems. Not to mention the brightness of headlights these days!
Also, this podcast is amazing and so intelligent. https://getagriponlighting.com/starving-for-darkness-episode-1-what-it-means-to-starve
It’s also great to just turn as many outdoor lights off each night when you aren’t using them or needing them. One small entrance light and perhaps a golden coloured motion detector light is good and safe.
Thank you so much for addressing this topic! As you accurately described, most outdoor lighting is missing its intended affect, while negatively impacting the environment (human, wildlife, electical consumption, etc).
But let’s also remember to consider our neighbors: not everyone has a large lot with privacy from others’ lighting choices, and/or likes having black-out curtains.
Most people in my neighborhood have motion-sensing lights on a timer. These are great since they don’t stay on, but most of the lights are the color and intensity of a LA freeway interchange and the sensors are left at their maximum sensitivity and are consequently triggered by passing cats or trees blowing in the wind. While some people have chosen lighting that is directed downwards, others have lights that cast light in all directions like the rising sun. It’s very annoying to have an otherwise blissfully peaceful evening suddenly illuminated like an arriving SWAT team.
Most people seem to respect neighborly norms for controlling noise and not allowing one’s possessions to spill into the neighbors’ property, but for some reason it is considered perfectly fine to pollute others’ space with light.
Thank you for shining a light on this topic! 😉
Not to mention that while we fear the night-time break-in, this is an extremely rare event. Simply google “when are most home burglaries committed?” and you will find quite the opposite to be true.
I have a neighbor who fears for her personal safety, and has chosen to address this by owning an extremely large, aggressive, and mostly out of control dog that has attacked many people in the neighborhood. Yet, we live in one of the safest and lowest-crimes areas in the world. Like excessive outdoor light, these are irrational and terrible choices that have consequences for not just the owner, but the entire neighborhood.
Let’s learn to choose wisely, for our own well-being as well as those around us.
Agreed, my sister lives close to a mountain range that is currently being developed. The light shining from the new homes is way too bright! Maria
Downlights are technically better for nighttime light pollution than uplights. Problem with these examples is too many lights are used and you can see the light source which contributes to glare. Also, the cooler light temperature makes them seem cheaper. Best to have a variety of up and downlighting and hide the source as much as possible for the most pleasing effect. Light the house AND landscape softly.
I agree with your points and want to emphasize that uplight lighting that is stopped by the side of the house or the underneath of the eaves is what Maria finds acceptable, not open uplighting.
I so agree with you on the downlights outdoors! I’ve noticed this trend lately in new houses. It looks harsh and jagged and shadowed. Lighting used to be from the ground and highlighted beautiful architecture softly. Great article and I’m so glad you addressed this for new builds going forward!!
I have lived on the lake in my dream home for the last twelve years. Five years ago a house was constructed across the bay. You want to talk about outdoor lighting?! Grrrr. That is exactly the reason we have put our house for sale and thankfully it sold last week. The light pollution house/yard/dock across the bay has ruined every evening since. Long gone are the nights gazing at the stars or watching the Northern Lights dance the sky in wonder.
How unfortunate 🙁 Maria
Agree with the topic!! Light pollution, light glare/trespass, circadian rhythm, & aesthetics can all work together. Shaded, directed lighting & warmer light color are the best ways to go at night. Uplighting really contributes to light pollution, but it can be minimized by light color/intensity/direction. You don’t have to be fully dark sky compliant, but DarkSky.org has guiding principles that can be very helpful as you choose lights for your home.
https://darksky.org/resources/guides-and-how-tos/lighting-principles/
Here’s another useful explanation:
https://hillcountryalliance.org/our-work/night-skies/night-sky-friendly-lighting/
The soffit lighting just makes your home look like a commercial building – where you can fill up your car and run in to buy some milk….
A very large home was built a block away – but at night it only looks like a small shopping mall – not the beautiful home that took close to a year and a ton of money.
This is a question I have for you Maria:
In the rental homes that you have written about adding lamps, pillows etc. Are the owners aware of your suggestions and did they then add lamps?
Perhaps in listings on rental sites they should list having plenty of lamps for eye comfort and reading as one of their amenities.
We went through this in the spring with our build. I thought I wanted soffit lighting, and we drove through the rich parts of town looking for examples. We found plenty of examples… And every single one looked terrible, and really ruined an otherwise beautiful house. We nixed the idea that night.
When we renovated twenty years ago we put soffit lighting on the back additions. Long before LED lights the lighting is bright but not glaring. We live in an urban hood with close proximity to our neighbours so those lights only come on if we suspect a ‘visitor’ ( they can be turned on and off vis a switch in the principal bedroom as well as the kitchen) or used when cleaning up after an outside party or just letting the dog out. The lights on the patio side have their own switch depending where we need the light this prevents the least amount of light affecting our neighbours. They are not on all night so rarely used we’ve never changed the bulbs!!
I get what you mean about spaceships, there are several infills and Reno’s in the area that look like office buildings at night! One home changes the bulbs to alternating green and red at holiday time!
Our PEI cottage neighbour has built a grand Coastal Living worthy home that has spot lights, motion lights it looks like a lighthouse!! The motion light on an out building flashes on and off if there is wind and tree branches set it off ( it is PEI!! Beside the sea) So we get this flash on, flash off affect at 2:am the neighbour on the other side has a solar motion light that is glaringly bright, it’s low on a small fence also set off by wind moving tree branches and wild animals…I’m telling ya when those two neighbour lights get flashing I’m sure it can be seen from space!! We just go ove and do some adjustments as needed as the danged things flood our deck. Talk about light pollution…we can’t see stars anymore. Coastal Living even paid to have a large street lamp installed at the end of his drive, with a brilliant LED light it shines in our bedroom so we’ve had to put in black out blinds as a guest commented that it was akin to a police helicopter shining in the window….why all these lights? Neighbour’s wife is afraid of foxes!!!!!! Haha foxes aren’t afraid of lights! Just lights up the garbage cans even better!
We joke here that these 199 outdoor lights houses’ owners must fear tree spirits. Or something.
Agree!! “Like a spaceship about to land! “ I thought I was the only one who thought this. I do not like these excessive, over the top lighting at all.
Thanks for confirming I am not crazy😂
Wow, does this post and the comments hit home! My home is on a small pond and neighbors across the pond have these bright spotlights which reflect across the pond again necessitating blackout curtains. I suppose they are for security but what is coming to rob them from the pond….Loch Ness? Second on my list are those bright LED lights on deck posts that shine in all directions….why? The bright white light looks so cheap. LED is great for energy saving but there are LED options which offer a softer light.
Great article on lighting. The million dollar homes across the road from my modest ranch has lights that make it look like a birthday cake….all lit up! And the backyard has so many on the ground, it looks like a airport runway.
What happened to good taste?
I’m thinking first talk to your neighbors nicely. About 40 years ago neighbors across the street put a very bright light over their garage and after a week of leaving it on all night I asked if they were worried about security and they said no, just about visitors tripping at night. I explained that it lit up my bedroom and for next 15 years they turned that light off every night at a fairly early hour. Also, just recently on a rural property when we explained to a neighbor that we didn’t really want their new security lights to light up our yard too, they dimmed and focused them differently. Sometimes neighbors just don’t have the means to consider your view unless you tell them!
I would have first contacted the offending party and maybe provided a few pictures before selling a lake front home.
I agree with all comments on soft lighting vs harsh sofit lighting. My question is where do you find the soft yellow lights. Everything has gone LED and they are very bright, even the soft white labelled ones. The same applies to interior lights. I am good with 40 or 60w so still am able to buy incandescent.
Where do you buy incandescent 40 or 60 watt bulbs. I’ve been struggling for years to buy them. I would like more indoor and outdoor lighting but I wont pull the trigger unless I am confident I can light them with the attractive amber glow lighting.
Amazon sells them usually. Maria
Doug Tallamy is long time expert on pollinators. Pollinators are harmed greatly by night lighting. It’s due to him, I changed from ‘standard’ night lighting to a pair of small ‘lamps’ with 9 watt bulbs on my front porch.
“Light pollution at night is one of the biggest causes of decline in the insect (read ‘pollinators’) population. If you don’t want to get rid of your outside lights, put them on a motion sensor so they are not on all the time, use yellow bulbs (“bug lights”) that are less attractive to insects, or even better, use yellow LED bulbs.” Doug Tallamy
https://www.fopos.org/announcements/2020/12/10/natures-best-hope-douglas-tallamy
https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/SHRINKTHELAWN.pdf
My brick edged gravel terrace is kept tidy with hand pulling of ‘weed lawn’ inching into the gravel. Good for soul, good for body, and the brain gifts ‘epiphanies’ during the endeavor; every time. Life enriching epiphanies. Yesterday’s gift of weeding was seeing hundreds of fat tiny caterpillars. Got my work done asap, to let the birds dine.
Thankful you wrote of Night Lighting !!!
I remember reading about a school in California which was constantly being burgled, in spite of being floodlit. The school couldn’t afford the electricity bills, so decided to turn all the external lighting off, as it wasn’t effective. The burglaries stopped. It was found that the burglars couldn’t see what they were doing without using flashlights, which alerted residents and neighbours to their presence. Good lighting can help as well as hinder burglars!
Great comment thank you! Maria
I have seen this type of recessed soffit light in my development, but for holiday lights . They are programmable, colored depending on the holiday. I don’t think folks turn them on generally, as we are a dark skies area. My sis who has design experience dislikes these holiday lights, but I think they are fun. Wouldn’t want to see that every day
TRUST ME….when I say my neighbor is over the top crazy. They leave the Christmas lights up ALL year round….and they are lit EVERY night!!! They are all around the framing of the home as well as all around the free standing mailbox!!! They are the kind of lights that are one color and fade then to the next. We live in a very nice upscale neighborhood ….not cheap. BUT NO HOA. here . I never wanted to live in a HOA….but now I sonetimes wonder…!!!!
These people have only been here 2 years and they are upsetting a LOT of people. Luckily I do live a bit down from them.
It is like the circus came to town!!!
This is where an HOA is great. What a bummer, I would have to move.
Well….not so easy to always “just move”. I love my home and have been here 12 years. Thankfully it is a bit away from me but on my street. My friend is directly across the street and she is in tears. The people don’t see it as a problem and think it is cheery. The kicker is we live in the mountains of Arizona. It is a “dark sky” requested area. The government has a look out station here as we have high elevation. It is requested to go dark but not required. It looks hideous!!!!
I will never understand the homeowners that think it’s ok to have bright floodlights shining right at their neighbors house. I have a neighbor who has THREE. I have a beautiful dark back yard and then there are these flood lights that look like spaceships. Luckily I was able to plant trees to block them because no amount of explaining the situation to the neighbors made a difference. I’m hoping this is the winter that all will fully be blocked. It’s a shame to walk around the nearby neighborhood with all of the poor lighting choices. It’s such a detriment to the wildlife and the ambient nature after dark.
Great topic. Thanks for addressing.
I would love to use your services to help me with a bathroom, however I can’t find an email address or a phone number for your company so I don’t feel comfortable paying for a service in advance, which I’m not sure is legit. Can you help me out please?
I know this isn’t the proper avenue to comment but it was the only way I could find to post this
Please continue to address this topic of bright motion lights that go off with every car driving by, breeze etc. I’m not sure if the people using these malfunctioning lights know the extent they are hurting their neighbors and the environment . Again in the name of “safety “ people are mounting lights that face outward that are vert bright and shine into neighbors windows. The more people that can read and implement the guidelines set forth by the Dark Sky organization, the better our neighborhoods will be.
Per the dark sky guidelines regarding outdoor lighting:
Use shielding and careful aiming to target the direction of the light beam so that it points downward and does not spill beyond where it is needed.
The key is that it points downward. There should not be lights pointing upward or out.
Thank you for this! I’m a Tucson-native, and Tucson used to be so helpful for astronomy because there used to be very little light pollution. Not anymore. We are loosing so much due to light pollution, as many mentioned above. Let me add astronomy work, too.
And check out the website for the University of Arizona Observatory! https://astro.arizona.edu/
Thank you for this timely article, Maria. I’ve been working with local council members, referencing DarkSky’s findings, to address these important issues. We’re working on implementing an ordinance to protect wildlife and insects in our area. I encourage everyone who reads this article to contact their local representatives to ask for change and talk to your neighbors about the harmful effects of excessive bright light. The situation seems to be worsening at a concerning rate.