Increasing Light In Dark Rooms with Some Simple Tips

No one wants to live in a dark home, and homes that aren’t gifted with excessive natural light can seem small and claustrophobic and impact your ability to enjoy your home.

However, you don’t need to put up with dark rooms in the absence of swathes of natural light. Fortunately, there are many tips and tricks you can employ in your home to help you boost light and give your home that bright and airy feel. Implementing these strategies can bring a sense of relief and optimism, transforming your living space into a brighter, more enjoyable environment.

This post will explore various tips and techniques for boosting natural light in your home or brightening it up.

Maximise Natural Light

From this one, you need to assess how your windows look and what you are doing internally and externally to make the most of it. If you have heavy curtains or furniture inside that block the window or plants and shrubbery outside, it might be a good idea to see if you can remove or change them to help encourage more light to flood the room. This allows you to open up the windows more. Also placing mirrors opposite windows can also be beneficial as the mirror can reflect any light around the room. Another great tip is to make the windows the focal point of a dark room so people are automatically drawn to the window, making it appear lighter than it really is, as this is something they notice first. Be careful not to block the window; instead, style it so you draw attention to it to give the illusion of more light.

Matt Paint

It can be tempting to opt for gloss paint over matt, thinking it will reflect light better; however, gloss paint doesn’t actually diffuse light all too well or evenly, leaving you with uninspiring results. Instead, opting for matte paint finishes can help you bounce light around a room more naturally to make it feel lighter. Pair this with neutral colors or lighter shades on walls, and this can have even more of an impact on darker rooms.

Layer Lighting and Ambient Light

Changing your artificial lighting to ambient lighting and using mutual daylight bulbs can help you increase the presence of natural light and illuminate the room more authentically. A bright light or those that can be adjusted to mimic natural light will work wonders for smaller or darker spaces, as can layering lighting.

Layering lighting is a great design technique and can be the best way to add more light discreetly. It involves using many different light sources in one space to build upon it. For effective layered lighting, you need ambient lighting (the main light source in a room), task lighting (small lighting areas that shine a spotlight used for a particular task), and accent lighting (lighting that draws attention to a particular place, like floor lamps or wall lights).

Ambient lighting is your room’s light source, which is usually your ceiling light or natural light, and is the main source of light in a room. Your accent lighting includes things like decorative lighting, decorative cabinet lighting, or wall lights, for example. These are the lights that add visual and aesthetic appeal to a room. On the other hand, your task lighting is the small lighting areas that shine a spotlight used for a particular task. It could be the table lamp used for reading, the desk lamp for working, or those lights above pictures and artwork on the wall you added to highlight them.

Use More White

As mentioned in the paint sections, lighter colors can help you to reflect the light better than colors that absorb lighting. And using more white within poorly lit rooms can instantly make it look and feel brighter. That’s not to say you cannot use dark colors in the decor, but increasing the amount of white within it will be beneficial. It might be that you have completely white walls, yet you balance this with deeper shades for your carpet or sofa, for example. Your deep color can come from an accent wall or furniture contrasting the white walls or in your accessories and artwork. However, the inclusion of more light can work wonders and will serve you well for brightening up a dark room.

Increasing light within a room can make the space feel instantly brighter and more enjoyable to be in. Luckily, many of these tips can be easily to help you boost the lighting in a room and open it up.