There’s no denying that natural lighting is better than artificial light, always and in all ways! It bathes your area in a vibrant full-spectrum hue that light bulbs only hope to duplicate, and it increases your body’s feel-good serotonin levels, too! The best part is, natural light WON’T come due at the end of the month with the rest of the bills ‘coz it’s FREE!
However, despite the many benefits of natural lighting, many homes were not built to maximize natural lighting. And while you may feel short of carrying your house and putting it directly under the sun– or relocating to a sunnier area– there are simple but effective ways to increase natural light in your home.
Check out these nine easy tips to help increase and maximize the natural light in your house.
The suggestion may sound basic, but washing your precious windows and glass doors thoroughly– inside and out– will ensure that maximum sunlight will filter through the glass and shine brightly throughout your home. Windows and doors are often overlooked when doing quick household cleaning, so now’s the perfect time to show them some love!
Chuck those heavy, brocade draperies out the door (we’re kidding, put them inside the closet!) and put out the light, airy sheers for your window treatments. Most Roman shades block the sunlight even when they’re open, so if you’ve got those on your windows, it’s time to take those down, too.
Ideal window treatments for your home, if you want to maximize natural light, are blinds and sheer draperies in a single panel.
If you didn’t know, the overhangs created by your roof are called eaves or soffits. They’re either left as open eaves or covered up with a horizontal soffit.
Whatever the case, this section reflects natural light and sends it into your home, so painting your eaves white is a sure-fire way to boost natural light in every area of your home.
Another easy way to add more light to a room or your entire home is by painting your walls and ceilings white or another light color.
Your interior wall color is the top way to reflect natural light into your room, so make sure you cover that part of your home. You may have also noticed that most ceilings you see in other houses are white. White reflects light, and since ceilings go unnoticed when surveying a room’s aesthetic, there’s no design penalty for going with flat white.
Use glossier paint for your walls to give them a mirror-like effect. Mirrors reflect light, so painting your walls with a higher gloss level paint will allow more light to bounce off that surface than one with a matte sheen.
If you have a remarkably dark room, you may want to consider glossy paint for your walls, even though it is not typically used on walls. Just be aware that more gloss means more glare from strong light, especially artificial light.
If you’re unable or choose not to install mirrors on your kitchen or bathroom backsplash, glass tiles are the next best thing. This type of tile reflects close to 100-percent of light that hits them. Another option is installing highly glossy ceramic tiles for a nearly equal reflective effect.
For maximum reflection, turn up the light even more and install metallic backsplash tiles.
Yes, replacing wall space may not be the easiest fix, but it’s an effective one. Replacing sections of your exterior wall with glass blocks will bring in a fair amount of natural light where no light would be entering otherwise. In any case, a glass block is not a structural replacement for a wall stud system, so headers must be installed over the block sections, as you would with any window or door unit.
Did you know that skylights are an effective way of pulling in natural light? In fact, skylights are often called windows for the roof! These skylights present as much glazing area as a medium-sized window and face upward where the sun is, making it an effective way to maximize natural lighting inside a room!
Skylights also bring in more consistent light than most windows since they’re less likely to be shadowed by outdoor objects, and sunlight reflected off clouds comes right into the house.
When sunlight reflects on a chandelier, it sends more light into the room, and the good news is, the chandelier doesn’t even have to be turned on for it to happen!
Choose shiny, glossy, and reflective room elements for your space to maximize natural light– mirrors, sconces, and shiny cabinet pulls are good options.