The patio gets a design plan. So does the outdoor kitchen, the retaining wall, and the planting beds around them. Every hardscape feature on the property gets measured, sketched, and positioned with intention before a single stone gets set. Then the sun goes down, and the lighting gets treated like an afterthought, a few fixtures added wherever there happens to be an outlet.

That approach explains why so many outdoor spaces look finished during the day and unfinished at night. Landscape lighting installation is not a finishing touch you add once the real design work is done. It is design work, and it deserves the same planning that shaped everything else on the property.