10 Ways To Increase Natural Light in your Home this Spring

Guest Blogger #468, Entry #1094, April 13, 2012

If you’ve checked your calendar or walked outside recently you’ve probably realized that spring is upon us. Spring is a time of warmth and sun, a welcome combination that often makes the inside world seem dark and dreary in comparison. For this reason, it is understandable that many people seek to maximize their home’s natural light during the spring season. Whether you’re looking for a quick fix or an extensive remodeling project, here are ten tips for accomplishing just that:

Bring in natural light with 10 helpful tips

Image via: Apartment Therapy

1. Free up your windows

Perhaps the best way to start is by clearing your windows of obstruction and opening them up to the sunlight. Many windows have bars or heavy drapes that prevent the maximum amount of light from getting through. Similarly, windows are often grimier – and consequently less clear – than they ideally could be.

2. Integrate your house with your yard

Sometimes the amount of natural light a home receives is just as much about perception as it is about reality. If your doors are open and if people are constantly going in and out of your house, for example, it is often easier to perceive that the home is getting its fair share of sun. As such, embracing your yard and your porch is a great way to help share the light this spring.

3. Repaint your walls

Dark walls absorb light while brighter walls tend to reflect it. On this note, painting your walls white is a great way to get more use out of the natural light that filters through your home’s windows.

4. Use reflective flooring

On a similar note, reflective floor surfaces can be equally helpful in creating a brighter interior space. The best options for this approach are white tile floors and well-shined hardwood flooring. Dark carpets, on the other hand, are generally to be avoided.

5. Remove foliage and other obstructions

If you have trees or shrubbery around your home, you probably appreciate the beauty they provide and have no desire to cut them down. But, by trimming strategically, you can remove a branch or two that allows for more light without decimating your trees.

Bring natural light into your home

Image via: BHG

6. Replace wood and brick with glass

Any wall in your home currently composed of wood, brick, or plaster can be replaced with glass so as to bring in more light. Since replacing a full wall is an incredibly expensive undertaking, many people choose instead to get rid of their wooden doors and put glass ones in their place – a far cheaper proposition. Glass can also be used as a reflective material in kitchen designs and other interior spaces.

7. Install a skylight

It goes without saying that a skylight can obviously help bring more natural light into your home. You can maximize its benefit by placing a new skylight in a room that, by design, doesn’t get much sun. Candidates include bathrooms, walk-in closets, and hallway corridors.

8. Enlarge your windows

Bigger windows will quickly translate into more light absorbed into your home. If you live in an older house with traditional square windows, an enlargement project of this sort could truly go a long way.

9. Raise your ceilings

Large rooms are usually more capable of trapping and reflecting natural light. Towards that end, knocking down your ceilings, eliminating your attic, and making your common areas taller can help these rooms feel far airier and brighter.

Raise your ceilings to bring in more light

Image via: Greige Design.Blogspot

10. Maximize mirrors

There is one final reflective material that can be used to increase light: mirrors. While mirrors will surely bounce any sunlight onto opposing walls, make sure to position these mirrors so as to avoid directing the sun straight into a person’s eye.

These are ten of the main ways to bring more natural light into your home this spring. Natural light doesn’t simply prepare us for summer and help brighten our mood, but it can also revitalize your interior design when combined with an airy, reflective, and modernist scheme.

Warmer and sunnier weather is here; this spring, don’t let it pass your house by.

For more home interiors ideas on Stagetecture, click here.