Guyses! Earlier this spring I made the biggest easiest improvement to increase our nighttime backyard chill vibes, and it was so incredibly simple. I’m unlocking the mysteries of landscape lighting for ya. I command (yep, command) you all to follow my lead and do the same with your outdoor spaces! So, I always thought you had to have tons of money and an electrician to enjoy a nicely lighted landscape. I mean that would make sense to me, for lots of reasons. Number one, we’re talking about electricity and the elements (like rain, and kids!), so I would assume cables would have to be buried 18″ below the ground, and stowed safely inside of conduit – but that is not true. Also, because you’re hooking up light fixtures to wires with flaming hot electricity running through them, I would assume that you would need a professional electrician to hook it all up properly – nopers! Also, I assumed it would all cost thousands of dollars, and it totally doesn’t. Seriously, alll you need is an GFCI outdoor outlet, a transformer, some low-voltage cable and landscape light fixtures. The key to making this easy enough for you and I to do this without electrocuting ourselves is the transformer. It plugs into an outdoor outlet and doesn’t need to be hardwired. The transformer knocks down a 120V standard current outlet, to a low 12V, which is safe enough for us typical non-electrician homeowners to use without worrying about getting zapped. And with the advent of LED lighting, the wattage necessary to run a backyard full of lights is incredibly and surprisingly low. For reference, I have 9 lights in my backyard running on a whopping 48 watts – that’s like the same as one incandescent bulb! I insist that you purchase LED lights for this reason alone. Because of the low wattage, the transformer can be really small, I am running everything on a 120W transformer, whereas just a few years ago, the same lighting layout might have needed a transformer that ran between 600 – 1,200 watts – and watts cost, bros. To figure out what size transformer you need, add up the total amount of wattage your fixtures will be using and then purchase a transformer that can support that amount. I would recommend leaving at least 25% extra in case you want to add extra lighting in the future. […]