25+ Best Driveway Lighting Ideas and Designs

Last Updated on May 27, 2023 by Kimberly Crawford

Driveway lights do not only help you in parking the car at night, but it also adds exterior illumination for the home. Having driveway lights establish the perimeter of the home, helping you walk around at night and avoid potential burglary. With these immanent functions, you might want to start considering installing driveway lights. 

Lighting the driveway does not follow a generic design. There are as many ideas out there depending on the overall design of your home. They could also be based on energy efficiency and other factors. To give you a comprehensive look, here are some driveway lighting ideas that you can consider. 

Driveway lighting ideas

Lighting the driveway is usually connected with overall outdoor lighting and landscape lighting. As such, you would find that most of the ideas that are featured here are also used in many landscaping uses. As is the case, here are some of the most popular driveway lighting ideas that you can explore and might consider for your driveways. 

Solar driveway lighting ideas

The best part about solar lighting is that they do not need complex electrical wiring. Most times, they are incorporated in landscape lighting and installed along the driveway edge to provide illumination to both. Solar lights also come in many designs so you can have an array of choices. 

Solar lights are notable for their dim, unblinding lights. Putting them in the driveway edge serves its function of helping you park and at the same time illuminates nearby hedges too. 

If you cannot get enough solar lights to emphasize as many spaces by the driveway as possible, you can light up lantern solar lights for the driveway and scatter more on the adjacent landscape. 

For a unique look, you can use these ray-light solar LED driveway lights. It evens the distribution of brightness in the driveway area and provides light to the turf and the landscape in general. 

Driveway light post ideas

It could be a solitary light post by the curb, two light posts by the entryway or low light posts along the driveway, there is something alluring and whimsical about light posts. They are classic, delicate looking and are perfect for suburban homes. 

For instance, this driveway light post not only serves as a light by the curb but also functions as a house number identifier. 

On the other hand, this one is a low height lamp post specifically illuminating the driveway. The chrome color and multi-trajectory lamp posts are stunningly accentuating the nearby landscape. 

This geometric, modern looking lamp post by the driveway, complements well with the sleek and minimalist driveway for a modern home. 

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Ground driveway lighting ideas

In-ground lighting is a practical way to clear all obstructions in the driveway while having enough light to brighten the space. They are also good for households with small children and elderly people as it ensures no tripping as they go down from the car.

Aside from eliminating obstructions, this line of tiny in-ground lighting by the driveway emphasizes the spaces that need the most illumination. It complements well with the bollard landscaping light too.  

This is another way to make a dim light landscape and driveway lighting in your home using in-ground LED lights. Its low trajectory light really gives accented focus on the lush greenery surrounding the long driveway. 

And since we are talking of ground driveway lighting, the most inexpensive idea that you can get would be ground, waterproof rope lights. It is not as bright as LED lights, but they sure can illuminate your driveway with enough light. 

Long driveway lighting ideas

The winding perimeter of long driveways make it necessary to use lighting combinations for the whole area to be brightened. Here are some lighting ideas you can consider for long driveways. 

For a walled, sloping driveway like this one, the use of in-wall LED lights offered the right balance of brightness to the ground. You can say that its main purpose as to why they are lined there would be to solely guide the driver into climbing that sloped terrain. 

On the other hand, this long driveway from Arizona capitalized on its high cacti landscape and combined the bright orange glow of lantern pathway lights to create an eerie feel to their driveway. Might as well keep this in mind when Halloween comes, right? 

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Long driveways could also benefit from in-ground landscape lighting. These are positioned at the base of bushes and trees. Installing multi-direction in-ground landscape lights is helpful in securing the entire perimeter. 

Driveway Christmas light ideas

Our favorite season could be a good excuse to light up all corners of the home including the driveway. Most homes would go over the top, extending Christmas lights to the driveway but some use heavy Christmas light decoration for the lights to cover the driveway even from afar. Here are some ideas for driveway Christmas lighting for you.

You can go all out and set-up arches along the driveway where you could pile in warm colored Christmas lights like this one. 

Related: 37+ Best DIY Christmas Light Ideas

Or if you want a more playful look, incorporating multi-colored Christmas lights along a curved driveway add more texture and funk to your home during the holidays. 

And to illuminate your sloped driveway on a winter frost, simple rope/string Christmas lights along the driveway edges could warm up the facade and brighten dark winter nights especially for your driveway. 

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LED driveway lighting ideas

LED lights are go-to outdoor and driveway lights because they do not fall short in design, in ease of installation and most especially in upfront cost and maintenance. You can install any type of LED light to brighten the driveway and here are some ideas as to how. 

For one, you can use modern design LED lantern lights for your driveway. In this one, the LED driveway lights are seamlessly incorporated in this sloped landscape design. With its warm light effect, it did not just illuminate the driveway but also gave the front yard a whimsical look, thanks to its soft glow. The canned LED ceiling lights on the driveway also added to this look. 

These are other LED lantern lights that you can easily incorporate in your driveway. The brightness level of the path light is really up to you. The benefit of above-ground LED lights would be greater area coverage. 

You do not need ornate installation or type of light when it comes to driveway lighting. Sometimes, motion LED lights or security flood lights could suffice. After all, they do not need to be open 24/7. Practicality wise, they still offer warm lights to illuminate the driveway up to the garage, like this one. 

Contemporary driveway lighting ideas

As an overall design vibe, contemporary aesthetics revolve around what is less is more. Even in driveway lighting, that holds true and these ideas here for contemporary driveway lighting prove that. 

For an edgy and minimalist look apt for a modern design home and driveway, you can install in-ground canned lights along the length of the driveway. An extra ceiling light as the car enters the gate is again, a good addition if your main purpose is full illumination at night. 

This is how warmer in-ground recessed lights would look like in your driveway. It would be best complemented by a warm color up-light by the garage door and in the main door. 

Bollard lights are an edgy and modern way to use for driveway lighting. Its tallness and perimeter help a lot in illuminating the driveway and when strategically installed could also reach the garage. In this idea, the bollard lights are complemented by garage wall lights for an all-angle lighting system for the front yard. 

Driveway pillar lighting ideas

You do not need to have a grand driveway to infuse pillar lights. These types of lights now come in many forms, sometimes even resonating bollard lights. As the name suggests, these lights are incorporated in gate pillars and in the home’s outdoor columns. 

Related: 30 Best Driveway Gate Ideas and Designs

For instance, this luxurious estate made a more upscale statement with the down can lights, complementing ground up-lights and pillar lights on its wrought iron gate, entering the driveway. 

This is how a pillar light looks like on an open, long driveway. 

At the same rate, this is another majestic use of pillar lights as the illumination continues by the driveway thanks to these bright, lined landscape spotlights. 

FAQs

Aside from the listed ideas, there is some specific information that you should know about choosing a driveway light. Hence, here are some of the most frequently asked questions on driveway lighting. 

What are the best driveway lights?

As have been previously mentioned, driveway lights are associated with outdoor and landscape lights too. With these, the following are the go-to choices when it comes to driveway lights.

• Flood lights
• Solar lights
• LED lights
• Rope lights
• Bollard lights
• Up/downlights
• In-ground lights
• Spotlights

In terms of driveway light brands, the following have been named as the best driveway lights for 2021: 

• Solplex
• Ollivage
• TomCare
• Happy Buy
• VoliSun
• JackyLED
• LITOM
• Garden Bliss
• Siedinlar
• GIGALUMI

How many lumens do you need to light a driveway?

By rule of thumb, the needed lumens for security lights should be the same as the installed driveway lights. For this, you need 2400 lumens. To reach this, you need commercial grade solar and LED lights or high-powered flood lights for your driveway. Because it is quite hard to reach with the 700-1300 lumens of LED and solar lights, combining two types of light for the driveway is a must. 

How far apart should driveway lights be?

If you want a very bright and vivid effect in the driveway, you should keep the lights as near to each other as possible. But the recommended spacing between driveway and garden lights would be 6-8-inches apart so that an even distribution of light is achieved and so that all the spaces around the driveway are brightened. 

How tall should driveway lights be?

For outdoor lights, the recommended maximum height should be at an eye level. However, there seems to be some exceptions when it comes to wall lights and lamp posts. As a rule of thumb, these types of driveway lights should be at 66-72-inches above the floor. 

Is solar light the best driveway light? 

When it comes to any outdoor light project, solar lights are still considered as the best lights, for driveway lighting included. It would best deliver at high heat but if it were charged enough and if it is indeed performing well, it can well last through the winter.

Aside from that, solar lights are relatively inexpensive. So, in these respects, we could say yes, solar lights are the best driveway lights. 

What is the brightest driveway light? 

The driveway light or outdoor light that would shine the brightest are task lights or spotlights. These two are equated to a 40W indoor light. However, with the perimeter they cover, they would not shine as bright, plus the outdoor condition is to be blamed too. Nonetheless, with respect to the other driveway light types, these two are the brightest. 

Related: 23 Best Concrete Driveway Ideas and Designs

Should driveway lights match other outdoor lights? 

Not necessarily. But of course, to have a cohesive look and to have an effect of continuity, the driveway lights, wall lights, and other outdoor lights should be at least coordinated with each other in terms of size, brightness, and of coverage, among others. 

Conclusion

To conclude, driveway lighting is a form of outdoor lighting that is installed for the purpose of brightening the driveway space especially for night parking. But aside from this, it is also beneficial in securing the home’s perimeter, especially those spaces in the front yard that are not reached by landscape lights. 

Overall, choosing the best driveway light for you remains entirely on your preference and the space that it must cover. Note that they come in different types, serving different brightness levels. Make sure that you first cross-check what you need before buying one.