Part 6 of our Deck renovation series; focusing on the built-in lighting.
This post is part of a branded content series with Home Hardware and Trex Decking.
One of the things I was most looking forward to on our deck was lighting. I feel like having great lighting can make or break a space, especially an outdoor space!
By the way, this post is all about the lighting we chose for our new Trex deck. But if you’re just stopping by and want to dig deeper into this project with us, you should probably start at the beginning when we planned and prepped for the new deck, demolished the old deck, and framed in the new deck space.
(And you might also want to have a look at some of the reasons why we chose to go with Trex for our main building material).
In the last post, I mentioned that we’d done a bit of a neighbourhood assessment before choosing a railing system for our deck. (You can read about our Trex railing and stairs here).
And while we did that, we also looked at how other decks were lit and we saw a variety of options.
Some people have twinkle lights wrapped around their porch railings, others have them tacked on to trees, umbrellas and pergolas.
But I wasn’t too keen on having all these wires and plugs to deal with on our new deck.
So when I asked our Home Intalls team about lighting, I was overjoyed to learn that Trex has built-in lighting to suit all sorts of styles and spaces!
This means our new deck is well lit and there are no wires or plugs to deal with at all!
End cap lighting
I’m going to file this type of lighting under ‘functional and stylish’.
Our Trex deck railing has small horizontal lights built into each end cap. This means the deck looks stunning at night with these glowing lights, but it’s also a safety feature for when we use the stairs at night.
It’s summer time right now, so it stays bright pretty late, but I cannot wait until the early fall when the weather is crisp and we can sit outside in the glow of the lights with a hot cup of tea or wine after the kids are in bed. Actual heaven.
I watched the crew install the lights (because I’m so interested in how this all works!) and it’s one system that threads through the railing and then is hardwired into the electrical panel inside the house. We opted to have the lights turn on with a switch in the dining room.
Stair tread lights
Beyond the glowing end caps, our Home Installs designer also suggested we add in small stair tread lights as well. They are about 2” wide and blend into the stairs nicely.
I like how they add a little extra twinkle to the stairs, and again, increase the safety factor at night as well.
Twinkle lights
Remember how back in the planning post, I mentioned the ‘under deck’ was going to be ‘my space’? Well, the gazebo net lighting was a ‘me’ indulgence. We picked these lights up at our local Home Hardware and installed using small hooks screwed into the underside of the deck.
It took about 20 minutes to install and the effect is a dreamy lounge area where I can escape from my work day for a calming lunch break or early morning coffee and meditation.
Now, these twinkle lights do have a plug, but we bought an adapter for the outdoor light, so now I just flick the switch from my office and the twinkle lights go on!
Now that we’ve had our deck for a couple of weeks, in the next post, I’m going to share some more about the benefits of working with Trex and a bit more about the finishing touches in our new space!
