7 Creative Ways Lighten A Dark Room
The weather is turning and we’re definitely into the dark half of the year, and for those of you who have houses that don’t benefit from great lighting, this can be a miserable time of year.
There are many ways to brighten up a dark room using specifically placed windows and even decorative features to allow light in, and these can make a huge difference to your dark rooms. Not all options will be available to everyone due to planning restraints, but there are many internal options that don’t require planning permission.
How To Brighten Up A Dark Living Room
We often get asked how to brighten up a dark room, and especially how to brighten up a small dark living room, and we have a few tricks we’d like to share with you today.
Use Mirrors
Using mirrors to get light into various places in a room is an old trick that still works perfectly well. Choose bigger mirrors to reflect light is a great option, and there are many different types of mirrors to choose from to suit all kinds of decor.
If you’re worried about children in the household, safety mirrors have no glass in them and are perfectly safe for babies and toddlers, and they work just as well to reflect light as traditional mirrors do.
Install A Skylight
If your room has a roof and you can get the required planning permissions, installing a Skylight can make a huge difference to the amount of light in your darker room. Skylights are especially nice for modern decor and kitchens, and they even boost the value of your home when installed by professionals.
Switch Carpet for Flooring
Has your dark room got carpet? While carpet is nice in the winter, even the lightest of carpet can still absorb light and not allow it to bounce.
Consider switching out your carpet for a different type of flooring. Lighter wooden floors, tiles, even marble would work well, although you will need to be careful that everyone in the family understands that wooden and tiled floors can be slippery, especially for elderly family members and young children. Therefore, you may need to use rugs on top.
Install A Glass Partition Wall
Glass partition walls are a great way to expand the available light into a dark corner or a dark room. If you have a non-load-bearing wall, then installing a glass partition wall or steel framed door is relatively simple and will only take a trained professional a few hours to complete.
If your wall is load-bearing, it is still possible in some cases, but this will require advice to be sought from a structural engineer to ensure the work is completed safely.
We have a wide variety of glass partition walls and internal steel door frames that will look great in any home, allowing more light through and a sense of openness like never before.
Use Lighter Paint Colours
This is a fairly simple trick, but if your room is particularly dark, painting with lighter colours will immediately improve the lighting, allowing more reflected light to flood the room.
It’s worth noting here that going for lighter paint colours doesn’t necessarily mean painting your room from floor to ceiling in brilliant white. There are many variations on the lighter paint pallet, from a warm putty to a cool grey and even light pinks and blues.
If you’re really dead set against all four walls of your room being white or very light, you could just paint the wall opposite your window a lighter colour or mix it up with a very light ceiling.
Clear The Clutter
There’s nothing that makes a home look more drab and dreary than piles of clutter.
There is a very well known saying in minimalist circles: “tidy house, tidy mind”. Many studies have shown that living in a house or even a room that is constantly messy can have a negative impact on your mental health and wellbeing. A cluttered home also looks very dark.
The logic here is that the light doesn’t have enough space to bounce around and light up the room because it gets absorbed by all of that clutter and dark furniture.
Embrace more minimalist principles and enjoy a lighter room.
Install Daylight Bulbs
The last suggestion we have is to install daylight bulbs in your home. These bulbs mimic daylight by emitting a cooler bluer light at 5000K lumens or above, which is roughly the same brightness as a clear, bright day.
While installing lightbulbs isn’t the best way to get light into your darker room, having a daylight bulb in an area that will never get sunshine even with the best will in the world (and the nicest windows in the world) isn’t a bad idea.
