Landscape Lighting in Dallas-Fort Worth

A professionally designed low-voltage system in Dallas-Fort Worth starts around $2,000 and typically runs $3,500 to $9,000 for a full front and back design. Large properties with extensive tree lighting run $12,000 to $25,000.

Budget roughly $150 to $300 per fixture installed, including transformer, wire, and labor. Fixture quality is the biggest variable. A solid brass fixture costs several times what a cheap aluminum one does, and lasts many times longer.

Because it doubles your usable hours and it's the only element that works on the half of the year you're home in the dark.

More specifically:

• Usable time. A patio without lighting is a daytime patio. With it, the space works all evening.
• Curb appeal after dark. Your home is seen at night by every neighbor and every guest arriving for dinner. Lighting is what makes the architecture read.
• Safety. Steps, grade changes, and walkways are genuine hazards unlit.
• Security. A lit property is a materially less attractive target.
• Cost per impact. At $3,500 to $9,000, a lighting design changes how a property feels for a fraction of what hardscape costs.

The difference is restraint and technique, not fixture count. Bad lighting is evenly bright everywhere; good lighting has contrast.

• Uplighting at the base of trees and architectural features, aimed to graze the surface rather than flood it
• Downlighting mounted high in a tree, throwing soft moonlight across a patio. It is the most natural looking effect and the most overlooked
• Path lighting spaced widely and staggered, never lined up like a runway
• Wall washing for texture on stone and masonry
• Silhouetting a specimen plant against a lit wall behind it

The most common mistake is too many path lights and nothing else. That lights the ground and leaves everything worth looking at in the dark.

Warm, almost always, in the 2700K to 3000K range. It flatters brick, stone, and skin tone, and it reads as inviting. Cooler temperatures above 4000K make a home look institutional after dark, and they make green foliage look grey. The one exception is lighting blue-toned foliage or modern architecture, where around 3500K can work.

Consistency matters more than the exact number. Mixed color temperatures across a property are the fastest way to make a system look assembled rather than designed.

LED, and low voltage. That combination is the standard now for good reasons: LEDs draw a fraction of the power, last 40,000+ hours, and run cool enough to be safe in planting beds. Low-voltage 12V systems are safe to work around, easier to modify, and don't require an electrician for every change.

Line-voltage systems still make sense for a few specialized applications, but for residential landscape lighting they're largely obsolete.

Less than it used to, but it isn't zero. Plan on a visit once a year to re-aim fixtures that have shifted, clear mulch and growth off the lenses, check connections, and adjust for plants that have grown. Trees especially. A light aimed perfectly at a young tree is aimed at nothing three years later.

Quality brass and copper fixtures develop a patina and last decades. Cheap aluminum fixtures corrode and fail in a few Texas summers, which is why fixture selection matters more than fixture count.

We design and install landscape lighting across Dallas-Fort Worth, with the strongest demand in Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Southlake, and Westlake, where mature trees and architectural homes give lighting the most to work with.