When winter, or summer for that matter, days are gloomy you want to make the most of what little natural light there is. Natural daylight can boost your mood as well as your health. If your home suffers from a lack of natural light, what can you do to increase the amount you can let into it? We take a look at a variety of options in this month’s article to help you get more light into your home.
Painting the walls
One easy and inexpensive solution is to paint your walls and ceilings with a light colour. White is the best colour but can appear a little clinical and cold, so an off-white is a great option. Alternatively, you can paint your ceilings a brilliant white, helping to bounce light around the room.
Painting the eaves
Not an option many know about, painting the eaves in a white colour will help to reflect light in from outside. The eaves are the overhangs from your roof. They are angled inwards, and sometimes covered by a soffit rather than left open, but either way they can get some extra light into your roof when painted white. It doesn’t matter what colour your external walls are as the inward angle means they cannot be seen from outside so changing the colour to white will have no effect on the external aesthetic of your property.
Light floors
Highly polished, lighter-coloured floors will help to reflect light around a room. Tiles and stone are great options, but if carpet is more your thing, just make sure it is a light-coloured one so that it reflects rather than absorbs light.
Tiles and splashbacks
We all have them in our kitchens and bathrooms, so replacing the ones you have with options that are highly polished and reflective such as glass or ceramic tiles will boost your natural light quota. Alternatively, mirrored splashbacks are best even if a little higher maintenance to keep clean.
Install bi-folding doors
If you have the option of replacing doors and windows around the back of your property, bi-folding doors are an excellent option of letting in a little more light. Take a quick look at our previous article on bi-folding doors for more inspiration. An alternative is to replace an internal, non-structural, wall with bi-folding doors allowing light further into your home. This is an excellent option if you have any rooms that suffer from particularly low levels of natural light or have fewer windows.
Install a skylight or roof lantern
Another good option for those deeper internal rooms that don’t get much light. While a more expensive option than re-painting, they will give you so much more as they let the light in from directly overhead, flooding your room with it.
Need some ideas or a quote for how to get more natural light into your home? Get in touch with our 1st Scenic team by calling us on 01689 829 600 or dropping us a line at info@1stscenic.co.uk and we’ll get that done for you.
