LIGHTING
Lighting Up the Yard
From Up-Lit Trees to Tiki Torches, a Tech Veteran Transforms His Landscape Lights and Audio By Henry Clifford
As the old saying goes, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Thanks to Coastal Source’s Franco D’Ascanio, Chris Marshall, and Tim Painter, I experienced Coastal Source outdoor lighting and sound front to back at my house. Coastal Source products are at the more expensive end of outdoor lighting and audio, but you get what you pay for. D’Ascanio, Coastal Source’s president, suggested I begin my journey through the “CS|DS” Design Service on their dealer website. Livewire (my custom installation business) has been a Coastal Source dealer for a few years, but this was my first time personally dealing with anything outdoor lighting related. The CS|DS process began with an easy online form asking me a few questions about the property and allowing me to upload photos. This first step took around 15 minutes (including walking around and taking photos). I received a confirmation email letting me know someone from Coastal Source would be in
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Residential Tech Today | Winter 2021
touch soon to discuss the project. A day or so went by, and the phone rang. I was greeted on the other end by the friendly voice of CS|DS designer Chris Marshall who started asking me questions about what I wanted to highlight around the house and helping me set budget goals. I had no frame of reference for any of his questions since I’d never had outdoor lighting before, so I answered as best I could and hoped for the best. The next day I had a few emails sitting in my inbox showing my property drawn-out CADstyle with lights placed and incredibly detailed connection and fixture diagrams. I was blown away. I asked Chris the next step and he told me if I was ready, go ahead and dump the quote he prepared on Coastal Source’s Website into the shopping cart and check out. I did and within 24 hours boxes started showing up. Lots and lots of boxes. I started inventorying all the gear, and what struck me right away was the build quality of the
products. I got the feeling that long after my house crumbles away, this lighting control system will be going strong. The brass fixtures are so well-engineered and built that it’s hard to discern that they screw apart at all. There’s no line or indication that many of the fixtures are made up of many pieces. Very impressive. Their connector system also stood out to me as incredibly intuitive and instilled an “I can do this” confidence in me. After I had everything laid out, I started assembling fixtures and installing bulbs. There are a ton of options here, but Marshall kept me out of trouble by picking out the color temperature and beam spread of each light. I picked up the diagram Marshall created, grabbed the first fixture, a sledgehammer and rubber mallet and trekked off into my front yard. It took me a few fixtures to get the hang of installation, but it’s pretty easy. You ram a piece of pipe or rod into the ground as a pilot hole,
