Night Lights I - Safety Dance

Here you can see motion sensor #1 and street lights that keep the side yard and playground area lit.

Motion sensor #2 is by the back door and really helps to find that keyhole at night.

This house is in an urban setting, so safety lighting, specifically motion-sensor lights, are a must. This house has three, a spotlight and a porch light attached to the house and one motion spotlight attached above the garage door.

These, in addition to the sidewalk streetlights, keep the house well lit and not too attractive to nefarious characters. It's also a great bonus that the porch light by the back door lights up on its own for late night-arrivals after gallivanting.

Pain in the butt to install, but really helps the deck look custom-made and more special, not to mention there's a lot less falling off the deck.

Also, to aid in drunken stumbling around the deck area, there are small lights inset into the stair risers (see photo up on top). These are a must. They're also a major pain in the ass to install on an existing deck, especially if they were never planned in from the beginning. These weren't. Crawling under a deck is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for overweight, middle-aged people that don't stretch enough. Or claustrophobics. Note for next time, hire a teenager. These lights do add immensely to the ambiance of the back yard, so they were worth it.

Motion sensor #3, above the garage & potting bench. This one also creates great shadows on the ground from the trellis/latticework above the garage door.

Well, if you are going to install lights like these, don't cheap out like I did. I bought some "economical" little copper-colored louvered lights from a store to remain unnamed (Home Depot) that are so cheap, that if you accidentally kick them, the metal bends and closes up the louvers the light's supposed to come out from. Let this be your warning that it's probably worth it to spend more than I did.

The garage, in better light, during the day.

Do you have any other ideas for safety-specific lights I should be employing? These tend to work fine, but I'm all for finessing what I've got. Short of having to crawl under the deck.

The rest of this week? Tomorrow is Ambient Lights. Wednesday is Tub Lights, Thursday is Fire and Friday is Fun Lights.