Enhancing the natural light in the family home not only enhances its aesthetics but also significantly impacts your well-being. A well-lit home, bathed in natural light, can uplift your mood, boost your energy levels, and enhance your focus and productivity. Let’s explore how you can increase natural light in your home, helping to bring in more of that invigorating light into your living spaces.
Even if your home doesn’t naturally receive ample light, there are practical steps you can take to brighten it up, reduce your reliance on artificial lighting, and give your space a whole new lease of life.
This is a collaborative post.
Change your window dressings
Some window dressings can really obstruct the light coming into your home, and although they can offer more privacy, i.e. vertical blinds, they don’t allow your home to be flooded with light through the windows if they are permanently closed or never fully retracted to the sides of the window. If you struggle with darker rooms, you need to look at what you have covering your windows and see if you can change. You might find UK Made Roman Blinds work better because you can lift and adjust the room’s light. Other options include removing blinds altogether and just opting for curtains. Or you might find curtains are blocking the windows too much, so remove them, only choosing to have shutters on your windows or voiles instead.
Remove Furniture
In darker rooms, placing furniture by the windows can result in less light penetrating the room as it is blocked. An easy way to increase light within a room is to look at the furniture placement and see if you can move it or allow for more light to reach all of the room and not be blocked at the source. Keep window areas free from clutter and place larger furniture away from the windows where possible. We know its difficult to keep clutter down when you have a family. Make a game of putting things away to help where you can.
Lighter Coloured Paint
White paint is the best colour for reflecting light around a room, and you might find that for overly dark rooms, sticking to white walls can increase the light and reflect it around the room better. However, smaller rooms can benefit from lighter neutral shades to help you increase natural light and avoid it being absorbed by darker colours. You can add colour to a room in other ways, i.e., soft furnishings, art on the walls, or a feature wall that isn’t in direct line of sight to a window, but opting for lighter colours on the walls can help you increase light around the room. it is tempting to use darker colors because they hide the kids’ handprints. Little fingerprints on walls might be something that is a trade off for you. Lighter spaces, means a little more wiping down walls. 😂
Hang Mirrors
If you have a mirror on a wall opposite a window, any natural light that does come in will then be reflected to give the impression of more light in the room than there is. As the mirror reflects the window, it can appear that the light is increased. Play around with the placement of a mirror; don’t be afraid to use floor-length mirrors for maximum effort or mirrors that mimic the shape of the windows to represent an additional window in the room and maximise the impact and lighting.
Adding more natural light to your home can be beneficial for reasons other than aesthetics, and considering how you design each room to ensure it has as much natural light as possible can really improve your enjoyment of your home.
We obviously share our experience of neurodivergent brains on the site regularly, with some key resources for parents and teachers on ADHD. There are also a number of strategies that are worth noting for ADHDers and beyond. Why not check out our article on neurodivergent lighting ideas too when thinking about the light in your home?
For more articles on home interiors, check out the design section within the website, as well as some of these specific articles below:
Other home related articles on KiddyCharts
Here are some more home related ideas for families on KiddyCharts for you to check out.
How to create a gallery wall in your kids bedroom
Ideas for making a fantastic gallery wall in your kids bedroom, perfect for any age even teens.
7 Easy and affordable bedroom decor ideas for kids
Ideas for you to get creative with to help decorate your kids room without having to spend a fortune on it.
Kids wall art ideas: Free printables for your kids room
Printables to put on the wall of your kids' bedroom to help inspire them, and you.
There are others off site too:
Home interiors ideas for families from the internet
Other ideas for home improvement and decor from outside KiddyCharts
3 Creative Home Decoration Ideas
Some great and creative, but simple ideas, to brighten up the family home.
Flooring ideas for a family home
Flooring is SO important for a family home, and here are some fantastic ideas for it for you all.
Budget-Friendly Home Improvement Ideas
Money can be tight when you have a family, so here are some ideas that don't break the bank for home improvements.
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Cheers for stopping by as always,
Helen
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!