Vintage Outdoor Wall Lights

Lighting up the exterior of the home is often essential – particularly when you’re thinking about safety and security. Simply being able to see where you’re stepping during the hours of darkness is important to prevent injury, and although you’re installing outdoor lighting for practical reasons, there is absolutely no need to compromise on style. If your home is a traditional cottage, or you simply favour a vintage look for your interior décor, you’ll almost certainly be looking for outdoor lighting that reflects that style – and there is no shortage of rustic, and vintage wall lights that fit the bill.

When we’re thinking about vintage outdoor wall lights, lanterns are by far the most popular style – and even within the category of lanterns there is a lot of choice. There are different shapes and sizes of traditional lanterns, nautical inspired styles, half lanterns, and simple and intricate designs too.

Traditional lanterns are often black or silver in colour, as you might expect, but they’re not the only options. Copper, brass, and bronze metals are all available, as well as white, while coloured glass features in some styles too – but colour isn’t the most important thing - the material that you choose is. Your wall light will be exposed to all weather, and that means the material needs to last. Most vintage outdoor wall lights are made from metals, but hardwearing plastics are a good option too – and in many cases, you won’t be able to tell that the light is made from plastic. If you’re living within a few miles of the sea, you’ll need to think about whether you need to consider corrosion-resistant models – you don’t want to find a great light only for it to stop working a few years later because of the salt in the air.

Just because your lighting is vintage inspired, doesn’t mean that your lighting solutions have to be. LEDs mean that outdoor wall lights are much more efficient than they used to be, which presents significant savings on your electricity bill. If you opt for solar versions of vintage outdoor wall lights, then the electricity required can be wholly provided by the sun, reducing the cost of running your outside light to zero. Solar powered wall lights also means that you can install lighting in areas of your garden that would traditionally have been difficult to light – walls that are far from the house and mains power, the outside of sheds and so on.

If you’re conscious of environmental issues, you’ll know that it isn’t ideal to keep unnecessary lighting on through the night – local wildlife, particularly the insect population, can be really impacted by outdoor lighting. Opting for vintage outdoor wall lights with motion sensors mean that you can get the look that you want, and the light that you need, when you need it, but without causing harm to the environment – meaning that everyone’s a winner.