Outdoor and exterior lighting is low-voltage or line-voltage illumination installed outside the home to light landscape features, facades, paths, and gathering areas. In Oakland County, a properly designed system costs $3,500 to $12,000, uses 40 to 80 watts of integrated LED total, and lasts 15 to 20 years. LandscapeLightMI designs these systems for Metro Detroit homes with Michigan weather, code requirements, and mature landscapes in mind.
What Does Outdoor and Exterior Lighting Cover?
The term is broad on purpose. A full exterior lighting plan for an Oakland County home usually pulls from six categories:
- Uplighting: 2 to 10 watt LED fixtures at the base of mature trees, columns, or architectural features, aimed upward to wash the object.
- Downlighting: fixtures mounted high in trees or on eaves to cast a moonlight pattern across lawns, patios, or driveways.
- Path lighting: low-profile fixtures along walkways at 8 to 10 foot spacing.
- Facade or wall wash: wide-beam fixtures aimed at the home's front elevation.
- Patio, deck, and pool zones: integrated step lights, pergola accents, and in-grade fixtures rated for wet locations.
- Entry and address lighting: column caps, post lights, lit house numbers, and garage-door downlights.
Most residential projects use 12 to 30 fixtures. Estate-scale properties in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham can run 60 to 120 fixtures across multiple zones.
How Much Does Outdoor Lighting Cost in Metro Detroit?
Budget depends on fixture count, cable runs, and transformer sizing. Oakland County averages for 2026:
| Project Scope | Fixture Count | Typical Installed Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Starter system (path + facade) | 10 to 14 | $3,500 to $5,500 |
| Mid-range (path, facade, uplights) | 15 to 25 | $5,500 to $8,500 |
| Full residential plan | 25 to 45 | $8,500 to $15,000 |
| Estate-scale | 50+ | $15,000 to $40,000+ |
Cheaper quotes you see online (say, $1,500 for 20 fixtures) almost always use big-box aluminum or plastic fixtures and undersized cable. Those systems typically fail within three to five seasons. The math on replacement costs more than doing it right the first time.
Why Michigan Weather Matters
Oakland County weather is hostile to outdoor electrical. Winter lows reach into the negatives, summer humidity stays above 70 percent, and road salt spray reaches 20 feet from any treated surface. Three design choices make or break a Michigan install:
- Solid brass or copper fixtures. They patina, they don't corrode through. Aluminum fails. Plastic cracks.
- Silicone-filled waterproof wire nuts at every splice. Standard twist-on connectors admit water, corrode, and kill zones by February.
- 12-gauge direct-burial cable, hub wired at each fixture. Undersized cable voltage-drops across long runs, making far fixtures dim and shortening LED life.
The snowplow problem
Any path light within 8 feet of a drive or walkway that gets plowed needs to come out by late November. We set our path lights in gravel wells so they lift out in 30 seconds and slide right back in April. Leave them in and the plow will find them.
Low-Voltage vs Line-Voltage Outdoor Lighting
Nearly every modern residential system uses 12-volt low-voltage, stepped down from 120V through a transformer. Low-voltage is safer, easier to modify, cheaper to run, and covered under a friendlier chapter of the National Electrical Code (NEC article 411). Line-voltage 120V fixtures still have a place for very bright commercial applications, but residential projects should default to low-voltage. Full breakdown in our low-voltage vs high-voltage guide.
What a Good Design Looks Like
A well-designed outdoor lighting plan follows a few principles that amateurs routinely miss:
- Light the object, not the fixture. You should see the wash of light on the tree or wall, not bright fixture heads glaring at you.
- Layer at least three depths. Foreground path, middle-ground facade, background tree uplights.
- Warm color temperature, 2700K to 3000K. Cooler whites look sterile and make brick look gray.
- Asymmetric fixture placement. Lights spaced evenly along a straight line look institutional. Stagger and vary beam spreads.
- Smart zoning. Separate circuits for path, facade, and trees so you can dim each independently.
Service Area
Our residential outdoor lighting crew works primarily in Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Troy, Rochester Hills, Novi, West Bloomfield, Franklin, Bingham Farms, Beverly Hills, and Farmington Hills. For the premium estate market see Bloomfield Hills landscape lighting. Full Oakland County service area details available.
Free on-site design walk
We come to the property, look at what you have, ask what you want to accomplish, and leave with a rough plan on paper. Written proposal with fixture specs and line-item pricing follows within 48 hours. No pressure, no deposit to schedule.