Quality outdoor lighting gives a home a welcoming look while safely brightening its entrance and pathways for you and your guests. Lanterns in particular offer a harmonious balance of design and function. The right lantern can enhance your home’s architecture and add a special finishing touch to its entry and landscaping, enhancing its curb appeal. 

With its nearly 100-year history, Hinkley Lighting is a premium designer and manufacturer of home lighting. Its outdoor lanterns balance form and function, offering lasting durability with superior design and craftsmanship. We’ve collaborated with Hinkley’s lighting experts to bring you a quick guide to outdoor lanterns, including their benefits and how-tos on selection, placement, and installation.   

Selecting the Right Lantern Locations

To get that warm glowing look and amazing curb appeal, lantern location is everything. Here are the best places to install these versatile fixtures along your home’s exterior:

• Primary entrance: Wall-mounted lanterns installed on each side of a front door offer an inviting look and ample illumination for entering and exiting the home. 
• Covered spaces: A hanging lantern installed in a covered porch or overhang offers more ambient and safe lighting from overhead. Lanterns also work well in backyard covered patios for comfortable outdoor living. 
• Garages: Attached garages are natural locations for lantern fixtures that brightens up driveways and boost curb appeal. 
• Secondary entrances: A single wall lantern can illuminate a rear or side entrance. Place it above the door for a wash of light from above, or install on the door’s keyhole side to balance function and aesthetics. 
• Landscape: Give your back and side yards an inviting look with pier, pathway, and post lighting. Outdoor wall lights and post lights illuminate porches, decks, pools, and garden paths to safely extend outdoor living into the evenings. 
• Outbuildings: Lanterns can provide illumination to other accessory buildings on your property, including accessory dwelling units (ADUs or guest houses), pool houses, detached garages, and studios.  

Right Sizing Your Lanterns

The key to getting the right lantern look is to size them properly. The lighting experts at Hinkley recommend selecting a lantern that appears half its size from 50 feet away. Light fixtures tend to look much smaller from a distance, especially outdoors — if in doubt, opt for the next larger size instead of sizing down.

The scale of your home and landscaping will also affect lantern size. Porch lanterns for an estate-style home will typically be larger than those for a modest single-level rancher. 

Lantern Installation Tips

When it comes to installation, proper lantern placement is essential for even light distribution and overall aesthetics. Hinkley suggests mounting lanterns so the center of the light source is approximately 66 inches above the door threshold. Two mounted lanterns should appear approximately one-fourth the height of the door. A single lantern should appear approximately one-third the height of the door. 

For landscape lighting, install post lanterns approximately every six feet to ensure adequate coverage of walkways, steps, and to illuminate plants, flowers, and trees. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing Lanterns

Lanterns have great design versatility and offer a balanced source of light for home exteriors and landscapes. Here are the most important considerations when choosing the right lanterns for your home:

Primary function: Do you want your lanterns to focus on design and aesthetics, or safety and security? Certain lantern fixtures are crafted to provide ambiance and a warm glow, while others are designed to brighten perimeters, stairs, and walkways. 

Design: Let your home’s architecture and landscaping be your guide when finding the best-looking lanterns. Choose a lantern design, size, and finish that complement your home’s style. Bring photos of your home to a local showroom and a lighting expert will point you in the right direction. 

Durability: Choose a quality manufacturer with a reputation for performance and solid warranty. Many lanterns are outdoor rated, but not all! Be sure your chosen lanterns have the required rating with weather-resistant materials, seals, and connections for durability and safety.

Energy efficiency: Look for LED lantern fixtures for increased energy efficiency and longer lifespans. 

Dark sky compliant: If you live in an area with dark sky codes, you can shop for lanterns that are dark sky compliant and that meet established criteria to minimize light pollution. 

Crafting Your Home’s Curb Appeal With Lanterns 

For outdoor lighting that’s versatile, functional, and compatible with most architectural styles, lanterns are hard to beat. Hinkley lanterns’ superior design, craftsmanship, and detail highlight a home’s architecture and outdoor spaces for beauty, safety, and livability. The best way to experience Hinkley lighting is in person — view lantern styles and get expert advice from a member lighting showroom near you.