What is Houzz?
Houzz is a website and online community designed to put meaningful resources in the hands of homeowners ready to make change.
It started as a side project by a couple frustrated with their remodeling efforts. They couldn’t find the tool they needed to make communicating their ideas easy. They used their frustrations to build the solution they needed. Now, the Houzz community numbers more than 40 million people worldwide.
Frontier Landscaping is a proud member of the Houzz Pro community. Now it’s easier than ever to collaborate. With Houzz, it’s a breeze to explain exactly what you have in mind. Planning your dream landscape has never been more convenient–or fun!
Inspiration On The Go
On the Houzz website or mobile app, you have access to photos, articles, and product recommendations. You can browse specific portfolios, or by general category. It’s designed for convenience: the site displays perfectly whether you’re on your phone, tablet, or web browser.
Look at real-world examples and ideas for your side yard, patio, fire pit, or outdoor lighting. You can ask questions or initiate a discussion about what you see. Pin down exactly what you like with regards to style and materials.
“Ideabooks” are photo albums filled with ideas. Browse them for inspiration. Save photos you like to your own Ideabooks as you go. Additionally, if you see something that you have a question about, you can ask and get answers, right in Houzz.
Collaborating Is Easier Than Ever
After you’ve decided on the look, feel, and products that you want to bring into your home, you can share them them directly with us on Houzz. We can give feedback and build on your ideas while literally being on the same page.
Best of all, this gives your project a head start. Instead of spending our first few meetings trying to figure out what you want, we already have a good idea of what you’re looking for.
How To Use Houzz
- Write a review. Reviews are the best way to help others connect with the qualified professionals they need. Do your fellow homeowners a favor. Let them know what it’s like to work with us.
- Start browsing! Save photos you like to your own albums. When you’re ready to meet, you can share your ideas with us directly.
Whether you’re updating or building, Houzz is an excellent place to get inspiration for what you’d like to do–and then get connected to your local pros to get it done. Join the community! We are looking forward to collaborating with you. Start Now
LED lighting continues its rise as a top trend for homeowners looking to get the most out of their landscape design. While low-voltage lighting is a traditional favorite, LEDs offer their own distinct range of benefits. It’s hard to resist the serious energy efficiency, ease of control, and nearly limitless design possibilities available to reflect your style.
Whether it’s bringing the view from your windows to life, or creating an outdoor room that’s welcoming and comfortable, LED lighting is a versatile and sustainable choice to fulfill your vision.
Light with Purpose: Set The Mood
First of all, what atmosphere do you want to create around your home after dark? With the right lights, you’ll trade flat, dull views for textured visual interest that increases your sense of enjoyable living space.
“Most people don’t realize this, but the backyard is a whole new room that they haven’t explored fully,” says HGTV outdoor lighting designer Michael Sestak. “You have the option to go beyond that light bulb at the doorway.”
Romance: Inviting Natural Charm
Use lighting to create a romantic view from your windows after sundown. Gently illuminated paths and layered accent lighting around plants and rockery creates a sweet invitation to savor your yard in the evenings.
If you’re a fan of a naturally-styled landscape, use delicate lighting to play across water features. In addition, the right shade of light bulb will echo the blue tones of moonlight. Consider soft uplights into your trees to showcase their shapes and textures.
Serenity: Relax and Enjoy
If you’re busy working during daylight hours, maximize your sense of rest and comfort around the places you enjoy when you’re at home. Tasteful accent lighting in shrubs and plantings around your deck, fire pit, or hot tub creates a relaxing atmosphere to enjoy a glass of wine and good company at the end of the day.
With the wide variety of LED lighting fixtures now available, it’s easy to carry over your design choices from inside your home to your outdoor space as well. This keeps a sense of natural flow to all of the living and entertaining areas you share with your guests.
“The right lighting can take any outdoor space from invisible to inviting,” explains Kate Campbell of HGTV’s “Decked Out” series. “Adding dimmable LED lighting to railing and stairs not only adds atmosphere but also enhances safety and security – and extends the time you can spend enjoying your outdoor living space.”
Excitement: Flaunt What You’ve Got
Gardening enthusiasts, use dynamic lighting to showcase your favorite trees, shrubs and flowerbeds. Additionally, don’t be afraid to exchange perfect symmetry for more irregular placement of your lights. This gives an organic feel that naturally complements each layer of your garden. With the right lights, you’ll lead the gaze of your viewers without overpowering your beautiful plants.
Do you have dramatic trees? Emphasize their structure and foliage with uplights, which enhances their scale and creates beautiful shadows.
Power: Forever First Impressions
Effective lighting strategies for your front yard sends curb appeal soaring with a few simple tweaks. Don’t settle for basic porch and walkway lighting. Set off an interesting front door or stonework with fixtures that showcase the uniqueness of your home. This creates powerful first impressions at walk-up (or drive-by). A small yard looks even larger when you bring lighting closer to the curb. Work the perimeters of your space for maximum impact.
Frontier LED Lighting Installation Services
In conclusion, outdoor LED lighting is a great fit for homeowners who want more from their landscape. It’s an environmentally-friendly solution that saves a lot of money over the long haul. Frontier offers low-voltage and LED lighting installation for new homes as well as retro-fitting existing landscapes. Contact us for a free consultation! We’d love to help you create the perfect setting around your home. Give us a call at (360) 574-8979, or send us an email: [email protected].
Additional Information
Hardscape design is one of the most exciting topics a homeowner can dive into. What is it, exactly?
In a nutshell, hardscape design encompasses the placement of non-living elements of a landscape: walkways, patios, fences, lighting, retaining walls, arbors, rocks etc.
Effective hardscape design adds function, greater enjoyment, and value to your home. For over 28 years we’ve been in the business of solving unique landscape problems. We know how to provide creative solutions to transform your outdoor spaces, and can guide you in renovating the ordinary into the perfect. Check out these recent samples of projects that have been fun to work on:
Hardscape Design for a ‘Home Away from Home’
These avid travelers presented us with an interesting challenge. Could we ‘naturalize’ a look around their comfortably-sized RV, which they keep securely parked in front of their home?
A direct approach, blending hardscape design with horticultural elements, was the answer.
- Low-profile lighting, a custom concrete pad, and fencing provide needed structure and privacy.
- Attractive groupings of native plantings is laid out in harmony. As the plants grow up and mature, they’ll provide additional screening, softening the RV surround with a naturalized feel.
Hardscape Design Trifecta: Yard, Garden, Patio
These homeowners won big with a hardscape design that accomplished three things at once:
- A raised garden bed made of retaining wall blocks is sturdy, accessible, and ideal for supplying their kitchen with fresh herbs and edibles.
- The gravel surround and dry creek bed act as natural dividers for the different uses in the new yard, and also reduce thirsty lawn space without sacrificing it completely.
- A handsome paver patio allows this family to extend the hospitality of their home.
Hardscape Design on a Dime: Gravel Paths and Pathways
Inexpensive and multi-purpose, gravel paths pair nicely with a variety of border elements, and their texture can be quite pretty when set against a lush lawn or garden.
Pictured below: Gravel dressed with bricks and pavers combine for a decorative approach in lawn and gardenscapes, while a simple partnership with 6×6 pressure-treated timbers provides instant, well-drained access to service areas alongside a home.
Feeling inspired? Our expert team is ready to help. Let us transform your outdoor space with a creative hardscape design that adds function, increases enjoyment, and adds value to your home. Let’s Get Started!
Spring brings sunnier days and the promise of warm growing weather before too much longer. As you envision enjoying a bounty of flowers and home-grown veggies, consider the ways a thoughtfully-designed retaining wall can materially increase your decorative and functional garden space.
Retaining walls remain one of our top residential installation projects due to their versatility in function and style. Besides the traditional benefits of terracing (for homeowners dealing with a steep gradient in the yard), a handsome retaining wall can be a simple key to bringing fresh inspiration to an ordinary landscape.
Manicured Look
An interesting bed filled with colorful flowers adds visual appeal and an upscale feel to your yard. Plantings can be tailored to attract hummingbirds, butterflies, or used as a cutting or vegetable garden. Bulbs, shrubs and trees can also be combined to offer striking arrangements with evergreen interest year round.
Enhanced Outdoor Living
Bring fragrant, eye-catching blossoms closer to eye- and nose-level around outdoor seating areas so you can readily savor their scent and beauty throughout the season.
Improved Yard Definition
Retaining walls function as natural dividers to separate your edible garden from recreational yard space in a natural way. Keep herbs, fruits and veggies growing close to the kitchen, while leaving the yard available for summer play.
Convenient Raised Beds
Retaining wall blocks make ideal raised bed frames and can be installed as a convenient quick-start for an easily maintained garden. An added benefit: blocks act as heat sinks. The soil within will warm sooner each spring and also keep warm longer in the fall than a traditional garden.
A recent installation in Vancouver, WA.
An unstructured lawn space was transformed through the addition of an inviting outdoor living area linked to a gardening area featuring a raised bed made of blocks. The patio, pathway, dry creek bed, and gravel surround are interspersed with hardy native plants for a natural feel.
Retaining Wall Design for Small Spaces
Frontier collaborated as part of the WALP* team delivering expert treatment for a postage-stamp sized “yard” in this display during the Clark County PUD Home Show on April 21st-24th. Retaining walls are relevant in a range of sizes and shapes, from small accent beds like this example to large-scale ornamental features in a yard or patio area.
Get a Bid
Frontier Landscaping builds all types of retaining walls, working with you to determine the right materials and composition to achieve the look you want and functionality you need.
Give us a call. We’d love to work with you and bring more enjoyment and usability to your yard and garden this season.
*We’re proud to be members in good standing of the Washington Association of Landscape Professionals: committed to professionalism, integrity, and continuing education in our industry.
Enhance your home’s nighttime curb appeal, increase its security and make it more user friendly through the use of low-voltage landscape lighting.
Low voltage systems have a step-down transformer that, plugged into an outdoor receptacle, converts your home’s 120V line to low voltage (vs. lighting directly off the house line). Add to that performance, relative ease of installation and economy and it’s easy to see why low-voltage outdoor lighting continues to grow in popularity, resulting in an ever-increasing range of types and styles.
Coming in at night with groceries or a kid in your arms, is it then necessary for you to tread cautiously in (locating and) climbing the back stairs? Such situations are justification for outdoor lighting of any sort. Driveways, walkways, steps and entrances are a great place to start.
You can extend the practicality of your yard by making possible to play basketball or work on the car by night. Wall-mounted lights may be the answer; these also increase security. Motion detectors can be convenient and save energy.
You can get really creative in lighting outdoor living areas; even install dimmers to achieve proper ambiance over the course of an evening.
Got a great garden? Why not flaunt it by night? Using overhead, in-ground and other types of fixtures you’ll create after-dark excitement – and deter trespassers at the same time.
Lighting the outside of your home is not difficult, but an evening stroll around the neighborhood reveals it’s easy to make mistakes: shadow-shrouded front doors, walks that are unsafe to tread by night, decks and patios rendered useless after sundown – or exteriors lit like maximum security prisons.
The Frontier Landscaping team will help you steer clear of such ‘missteps’ and find the types and styles of lighting to achieve the purpose and effect you’re looking for. Call today!
A water feature is the ‘icing on the cake’ for
many commercial and residential landscapes.
There’s nothing like a water feature to add sound, texture and movement to the landscape and create more natural, unique surroundings. You might say a water feature brings nature to your door. During lunch hour or after a stressful day, the sound of running water can be both soothing and rejuvenating.
Water features can be designed around whatever size or shape of yard you’ve got to work with. A slope could become a cascading waterfall and creek or an awkward flower bed near the front door a welcoming fountain. Koi ponds are a source of delight with their flashy fish darting among the waterlilies. Because of its recirculating nature and materials used, most water features require little maintenance.
At Frontier Landscaping we design, install and maintain a wide variety of impressive water features. We construct large multi-featured waterscapes as well as smaller, simpler set-ups. We can take care of the plantings, in and out of the water, install irrigation and install outdoor LED lights for nighttime drama.
We use only quality materials to install smooth-running water features that add value to your property and become a source of pride and joy for years to come. Call us today for an estimate!
