Lighting is one of the most effective design elements when creating your perfect luxury outdoor living space. Yet, it's also one of the most commonly overlooked. It's often confusing and complicated to know how to balance usefulness and style when designing your project. Consider the following tips before you get started and you'll be well on your way to having the welcoming and luxurious outdoor room you're craving.

With so many choices and so many manufacturers jumping on the smart lighting bandwagon, you need to make sure that the fixtures you choose will work seamlessly with your existing smart home network. When doing your research, don't forget to check which home automation networks that perfect fixture will play nicely with. This information is often found on the packaging, but if it's not there, make sure you check out the manufacturer's website. You don't want to pay a premium price only to find out later that the fixture you fell in love with just won't work with what you already have.

While you don't want to leave large pockets of darkness in your outdoor space, you also don't want to light your patio as brightly as a big box store. Think about how different areas of your outdoor living space are used and how people move from one to another. Create connection and flow between the areas, and between your outdoor and indoor spaces. Subtle lighting along paths, pool edges, and doorways creates definition, adds safety, and ties areas together. For areas where more light is needed, for instance for cooking or dining, increase the number of fixtures and consider using pendant lighting to direct the light exactly where it's needed.

Color temperature is commonly referred to in terms of how warm or cool the eye perceives the light to be. For elegant and comfortable outdoor living spaces, warmer is better. People, food, and drinks look better when the color temperature is on the warm side. It's also a signal to the brain to relax and de-stress. Warm doesn't have to equal dark. Layer your lighting with ambient light above, reflecting light to the sides or just on the edge of the area, and feature lighting on a table or bar.

Lighting can be designed to show off exquisite landscape elements, such as a bed of prized tropical plants or a water feature. It can also be used to direct attention away from a more utilitarian area, like a garden shed or storage area on the end of your balcony. If your home has a beautiful architectural feature, consider using a wash of light to highlight it.

Do you have a curving path that leads to a beautiful rose arbor with a seating area tucked beneath? Use low level lighting to direct the eye along the path, ultimately letting it come to rest on the enchanting scene.

Remember, more is not always better when designing an outdoor lighting plan for your luxury lifestyle. Follow these tips and you'll be heading away from the everyday to the elegant.