Getting more natural light into your home can improve your mental wellness and increase serotonin levels to make you feel happier. Since it’s a cost-effective and sometimes free light source, it can also help reduce household energy bills and increase your home’s property value.
Fortunately, you can use a few effective methods to make your rooms and corridors sunnier, lighter, and brighter. These include upgrading or remodeling options to maximize your house’s design and enhance light exposure in dark areas.
Here are five ways to increase the natural lighting in your home:
1. Install More Windows
Windows are the key element to getting more sunlight into your home, even in areas positioned away from the sun. So, if your budget allows, you can add larger windows in your home that can ideally be placed higher or above rooms, such as skylight windows.
In relation to this, if you have high ceilings, installing floor-to-ceiling windows without interrupted columns can light up a whole room while also giving you magnificent outside views. Yet if you need replacement window options, you can have them installed into the width of a wall as a picture window or choose doors made of glass to let the sun in.
2. Use Sheer Curtains
A smart design hack used by interior decorators to light up a home is by using sheer curtains or blinds. They let light pour into a room while softening direct sunlight, so you keep your house cool with a well-lit ambience.
Additionally, sheer curtains and blinds control outside light coming in, your home can remain lit up during the evenings because of moonlight and street lamps, so you won’t have to turn on the porch or outside lights as often. An important tip to remember is that curtains and blinds made from airy fabrics and neutral tones will work better to invite natural light than darker-toned ones.
3. Paint The Walls White
This natural lighting method will add a brightening effect to your room, as white-colored walls are excellent light castors. Painting your walls white is a cost-effective illuminating solution, especially if you have a problem with dull, dim, or shadowy interior rooms or live in an enclosed apartment. In this case, you can opt for white paint with a glossy finish to create a reflective natural glow.
Plus, you can extend this to your exterior by painting your roof overhangs or eaves white so they can catch and send sunlight back into your home. An alternative choice to purely white walls is pastel, muted, or neutral tones such as cream, pale yellow, or light ice blue.
4. Use Reflective Surfaces And Objects
Another simple way to add to your home’s natural light is to use reflective surfaces and objects to catch and emit brightness around the room, even during less sunny days. These can be transparent ornaments or metal décor pieces in your living room cabinets, glass blocks in your bathroom, and shiny floor tiles, for instance.
One reflective object you can truly utilize is a mirror strategically placed in darker corners or angled opposite a small window to bounce the light to the rest of the area. Mirrors can also be used decoratively as wall screens to make the space look bigger while bringing in more light.
5. Create An Open Floor Plan
Increasing natural light isn’t just about bringing objects and materials into your home, it can be as simple as utilizing the size of rooms. An easy way to do this is to create an open plan open floor plan feel to a room by rearranging the layout. If furniture can be positioned nearer to walls allowing more space between doors, walking paths, and room entryways, then you can eliminate shadowy areas created by obstructing items.
Additionally, you can take this a step further by going the remodeling route and taking down a few walls or columns to make single rooms that allow more light. This can be most effective if you integrate the open plan with an indoor-outdoor living space with connecting doors that cast sunlight deeper into your home.
Conclusion
You can increase the natural lighting in your home with just a few strategic methods that are budget efficient. You can add more or bigger windows to your home and maximize the light they bring by placing shiny, reflective objects and materials around them. These can be mirrors, glossy white walls, and glass blocks into your rooms.
Then to brighten up whole rooms, you can install sheer curtains and change the design of your home to reduce dark areas. With this, you can enjoy more evenly cast natural light in your home and the wellness benefits that comes with it.