Lighting is one of the most important design elements of any area of any home, and it shouldn’t be underestimated. The emotional impact of a home that feels brighter and sunnier can completely change how you feel about a space, and it can make it feel cleaner, fresher, and like a happier place, overall. Whether you’re looking to make better use of what limited light we have during these darker days or you want to prepare the home for the spring and summer, here are a few ways you can really maximize the natural light in your home.
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Maximize your doors and windows
Of course, if you’re talking about adding more natural light to the home, then the first and biggest step that you can take is to actually get more of it in the home by widening where the light is coming from. The single best option for this is to look at your doors and windows and to ask yourself if you could get them in a bigger size or opt for a design that is better at letting through light. If you have older doors or windows that are likely to get replaced at some point anyway, you should think about replacing them with options that have a bigger surface area of glass. Of course, you can always make space for larger options, like replacing your back doors with french doors from A&L Windows, as well.
Switch up your window treatments
Changing up your windows can be a good start, but you need to think about how much of the light coming through them is getting blocked, as well. Of course, window treatments are, in part, there to control exactly how much light gets in. In some areas of the home, you might be able to get away with window treatments, but that’s not always viable, as you want them for privacy, as well. However, when it comes to choices like heavier curtains, they tend to block light even when they’re not pulled closed. As such, you might want to take a look at lighter options from teams like ABC Blinds & Awnings. Lighter slat blinds can offer just as much privacy, and even more lighting control with things like blackout blinds, but also have a lot more control for when you want to let light in the home, as well, as they can be pulled tight to the sides using the roller.
Make better use of brighter colours
Aside from getting more light into the home, you want to think about how you can make better use of the light that gets in there as well. There are ways that your interior design can play a role in maximising the light that it gets exposed to, and one of the best ways to do that is with the right colours and textures. Light can be absorbed or reflected, and knowing which colours and textures do which can be huge for making rooms feel brighter. For example, the colours you choose for all paints can both brighten rooms or darken them, depending on your wishes. If you’re all about getting more natural light around the room, then it’s the bright and light colour schemes that are going to help, such as sky blues, sunny yellows, oranges, and the like. This colour scheme change can apply to more than just the walls, of course.
Mirrors can be a huge benefit, too
If you’re thinking about the reflectiveness of colours in your home, then you can only imagine what kind of good actual reflective surfaces can do, as well. Your ability to get the right mirrors and use them creatively in the home can do a huge job for creating spacial illusions, such as making the home feel bigger or bringing even more attention to certain focal points of the home. But the way that they can reflect light is probably one of the biggest impacts they can have on the home. When you’re using mirrors to reflect light, you typically either want to place them directly opposite from where the light is coming in. However, you might be able to fill up more of the darker corners in the room by, instead, angling it so that it catches the light from the window but bounces it around to some of the darker corners.
Incorporate reflective surfaces in your decor a little more
Mirrors are far from the only reflective surfaces that you can use in your home’s interior, of course. There are different types of woods and plastics that have a more reflective style to them that will play a bigger role in letting light bounce around the room, much like brighter colours can do the same. You might want to make sure that you’re not overdoing it across the entire room, of course. Strategic placement of reflective surfaces can be great for bouncing light around, but if they’re everywhere in the room, you can end up creating an uncomfortable glare that certainly won’t make the space more comfortable to be in.
Minding your overhangs and eaves
The angle that the sunlight hits your home from, and how it comes in through the window is worth thinking seriously about. The sun isn’t usually going to be shining directly through the windows, it can come in from above and from the sides, so you should be thinking about the fixtures that can surround or hang above the windows as they can influence how natural light gets into the home, as well. Overhangs, eaves, and any other surrounding features might play an important role in the home, but you can make sure that they’re not doing too much to get in the way of your light by using lighter and brighter colours on them, repainting them so that they can better reflect light rather than absorb it. A simple coat of white paint can do a lot of good.
Don’t block light coming into the home
If you’re thinking about your overhangs and eaves, then you should also be thinking about your windowsills and their potential to get in the way of light coming into the home. Windowsills, especially interior sills, are often chosen as a bit of a focal point, a place to put down some knick-knacks that can add personality and style to the room. However, you should opt to keep them clutter free so that you’re not creating any large shadows that can end up stretching across the room, taking up some room that could better be filled by light.
Could knocking a wall down be the answer?
How light travels through the home can become a moot point when there’s a big wall in the way. As such, have you considered having a look at whether or not you really need those walls or not? Teams like Wall Removal can help by opening the home right up, but if that’s not your style and you still want a little separation between the spaces of the rooms, then you might instead want to look at options like instead installing doors that can allow light through them but can also have drapes pulled over them or even glass walls. You can use frosted or designed glass that still allows for some privacy from room to room, but is going to do a much better job of letting the light through.
Take it from the top
An extra window could do a lot of good when it comes to letting more light in, but you might be wondering where, exactly, you could possibly fit it. The answer might be right above your head. Teams like Solatube can install solar tubes in your home if you have the budget and your home is a good mix for it. You have to remember that solar tubes and skylights only really work for floors directly below them, so they’re particularly great for single-floor homes, but homes with multiple floors are going to see limited results from them. That said, they’re a great way to add more light to your home without having to sacrifice privacy, as it’s very unlikely anyone is going to be getting a view of your home from above.
Make better use of greenery
Plants can do a lot to make your home look both brighter and more welcoming. Despite the fact that they quite literally absorb sunlight to continue growing, they can still play a big role in increasing the feeling of lightness in the home. The glow that they can take on from that sunlight helps them become a brighter shade of green which, in turn, does make them a slightly more reflective surface. Flowers with light coloured flowers can also make the room feel a lot brighter, as well.
The tips above are going to do more than simply make use of natural light and brighten the home. They can change the whole way you see and feel about the spaces you implement them in.
