Learning how to get more natural light in a room is the key to boosting your mood, productivity and vision. Discover the secret to unlocking the multiple benefits of using natural light in your home.
Break free from dependency on artificial lighting and take control of your energy costs. By investing in full-frame window replacements, you can stop wasting precious daylight. Follow these steps to bring more natural light into your home, and greater energy efficiency isn’t the only benefit you’ll see!
Contact our experts to see how a simple window replacement can boost the lighting in your home.
Unlock the Benefits of Increasing of Natural Lighting in Your Home
Using natural light instead of artificial light has a number of positive effects on your health. Waking up to the sunlight pouring through a window is proven to boost your energy in the morning. Along with the vitamin D it provides comes a natural response in your body that has been shown to lift your mood. Increasing the amount of natural sunlight in home settings can also reduce the level of fatigue you feel when forced to look at a computer screen all day.
Benefits of increasing natural lighting include:
- Longer productive hours: People have more energy to work when exposed to natural light instead of working under artificial light. One study found that 47% of employees felt tired if their office didn’t include a natural light source. You have more energy to do your chores, finish work and spend time with your loved ones. It goes to show how using daylight as a primary light source can enhance productivity for you and your family.
- Mood lifting: Allowing sunlight to stream freely through your windows can help you feel better and calmer. That’s because a positive mood is often associated with great daylighting. Natural sunlight provides a boost of Vitamin D that can help alleviate depression, anxiety and even sluggishness that homeowners can feel in a dim home. This is all thanks to a happy hormone called serotonin, which is stimulated by sunlight.
- Better vision: Smartphones and fluorescent lights tend to cause eye strain, which can cause headaches, eye soreness and fatigue. You can avoid all these unwanted eye issues by using natural room lighting when reading books or finishing household chores. Using daylight in everyday activities also helps the eye produce dopamine, which is essential for healthy eye development.
- Improved sleep: Light plays a critical role in sleep patterns. According to the Sleep Foundation, exposure to natural sunlight helps regulate the body’s internal clock, signaling when to sleep or be alert. Excessive exposure to artificial lighting can have dramatic effects on our sleep cycles.
With so many benefits, it’s worth taking the time to find ways to bring more sunlight into your interior spaces.
How to Bring More Natural Light Into Your Home
There are several ways to boost the natural light in homes. Some are as obvious as installing more windows, either with skylights or new combination windows. At the same time, other methods require some creativity, like decorating with reflective surfaces and including lighter colors in a space. Start with one and keep trying new techniques until your home is lit up from sunrise to sunset. Here are our top ten tips on how to get more natural light into a room:
- Add Or Replace Windows
- Window Cleaning & Maintenance
- Replace Curtains With Sheer Curtains
- Paint Walls With Light Colors
- Install Skylights
- Add or Replace Patio Doors
- Decorate With Mirrors
- Incorporate Reflective Surfaces
- Remove Objects Blocking Natural Light
- Create A “Sunlight Room”
1. Add Or Replace Windows
The first step on how to get more light in a room should be to ensure you have adequate windows. The following tips for spreading light around a room won’t do much good if the sunlight doesn’t have an entry point. Adding or replacing windows with updated designs can influence your interior design in a major way.
Beyond adding natural light, windows can bring in the views around you and act as a design element unto themselves in spaces like a kitchen or living room. Replacement windows are a great way to update your home as they combine both form and functionality through lighting, ventilation, and energy efficiency.
Asher’s Replacement Windows
Asher Lasting Exteriors can help you make the most out of your windows through our replacement windows services. We are proud to be an installer and distributor of Renewal by Andersen windows, one of the top-quality window choices for residential homes. Their windows have such a sturdy material of Fibrex that allows a narrower frame, thus producing more glass area for more natural light!
Check out the latest in modern window designs to see how our window replacements can go beyond adding light to improve your home’s interior design.
2. Window Cleaning and Maintenance
Here is a quick DIY task on how to add natural light to a room that takes nothing but time and a bit of elbow grease. It can be hard to tell when we need to clean the windows because we’re always looking through them and not at them.
The majority of homeowners only clean their windows once or twice a year, but if you’re dealing with frequent storms, you may want to increase that number. Cleaning your windows and window screens is the most effective way to increase the amount of natural light your house takes in.
Dealing with stubborn windows that won’t come clean? It may be time for a window replacement from the experts at Asher.
3. Replace Curtains With Sheer Curtains
Curtains are a great way to accent your windows and tie them into the home decor you have established. However, if your curtains are too heavy or dark in color, they can limit the amount of natural light your window lets in.
Replacing your heavy curtains with sheer curtains is the best way to maintain your privacy while still letting light shine into your rooms. Utilizing a sheer drapery and slatted blinds will give you the maximum control over your home’s lighting while still keeping the original aesthetic.
4. Paint Walls With Light Colors
Whether you learned it in science or art class, the fact remains — lighter colors reflect light better than darker ones. This means the same four-windowed room painted dark blue will look dimmer than if it were painted off-white.
The same can be said if you paint the ceiling a dark color. Most homeowners choose to paint it a few shades lighter than the walls to make the room seem taller and full of light. You can take the principle further by painting with satin or semi-gloss paint to better reflect the incoming light.
5. Install Skylights
The ideal natural light window is the one that faces the sun most of the time. Skylights are most commonly installed in high-traffic areas like hallways, living rooms and bathrooms. With a ton of shapes and sizes available, you can create some truly unique features in your home. Since installing a skylight involves cutting a hole in your roof, we recommend hiring a professional to get the job done right.
6. Add or Replace Patio Doors
Replacing old doors in your home is a great way to boost your energy efficiency, security and natural light. Whether it’s fitting a small window accent in your front entrance door or replacing your patio door with a sliding glass style, both can significantly improve your lighting.
For homes without patio doors, consider opening a wall to create a small patio or deck area. It’s a large project, but one that will improve your quality of life and the value of your home for years to come.
Asher Lasting Exteriors’ Patio Doors
Replacing your doors is a home improvement task with a strong return on investment. Asher Lasting Exteriors can help you select the best exterior doors to battle the cold weather, improve security and add more natural light to the home. Explore the many options for patio doors on our website or by visiting our showroom.
7. Decorate With Mirrors
It’s an illusion used in restaurants across the world — utilizing mirrors makes your room feel bigger and reflects a lot of natural light. Decorative mirrors are great for entryways and bedrooms, where people often put the finishing touches on an outfit before leaving the house.
Few consider how they could be used throughout the rest of the home, such as in photo frames, light fixtures, cabinet hardware and other highly reflective surfaces. Each tiny surface comes together to bounce the light around your home and make your space feel brighter.
8. Incorporate Reflective Surfaces
Similar to the light color palette used to brighten your walls, your tile flooring and countertops are great places to utilize light paint colors for reflection. Wood, ceramic or stone floors can be polished regularly to get the most out of your home’s natural lighting. Kitchen and bathroom backsplashes are also ideal for high-gloss ceramics like the popular subway tiles in modern home designs.
Ask our experts how to bring more light into a room for the best recommendations on window design in the area.
9. Remove Objects Blocking Natural Light
Landscaping is a great way to boost your curb appeal, but the time comes when the overgrown trees and bushes start to diminish the light entering your home. It’s another great opportunity for a DIY solution to increase natural sunlight in your home.
Grab your gardening shears and a hedge trimmer to tame the bushes and reclaim your sunlight. If your trees seem too overbearing, it may be time to replace them with lower-growing perennials or shrubs to keep the light pouring in.
10. Create a ‘Sunlight Room’
A sunlight room, or sunroom, is an open room with natural light pouring in from all angles. It can be a large family room or a simple reading nook, as long as the purpose is to gather as much natural sunlight as possible. Decorate it with plants or unique furniture to make the room inviting and relaxing. Let your imagination run wild, or find inspiration in these modern sunroom ideas to create your ideal interior home oasis.
How to Make a Dark Room Brighter
Do you have a room in your home that doesn’t get much natural light, or a basement that needs brightening up? While bringing natural sunlight into your home is always best, there are ways to transform dark rooms into cheerful, welcoming spaces.
When you can’t increase the amount of natural light in a room, try these hacks to make dark rooms and hallways feel lighter, brighter and more inviting:
- Declutter: Keep your dark rooms and spaces tidy and clear of clutter. In bedrooms, opt for plain bedcovers rather than patchwork designs, and keep decor minimalistic to give the illusion of space.
- Paint light colors or consider glossy wallpaper: Use colors to your advantage. Light glossy paint or interesting reflective patterned wallpaper bounces the available light around the space.
- Maximize artificial lighting: Add lighting at different levels. Rather than relying on one main light source from above, try adding floor and table lamps fitted with LED daylight bulbs. Enhance the effect by including uplighting from the floor to illuminate dark corners.
- Incorporate reflective surfaces: Think mirrors, metallic accents and glass lamps. Any time light reflects from a surface, it makes an area brighter and gives the illusion of space.
With these strategies, you can create bright, inviting spaces anywhere. These simple changes can have a lasting impact on your enjoyment of your home.
Replace Your Windows With Asher Lasting Exteriors
Finding the right solution to let more natural light into your home can be tricky. Whether you’re building from scratch, undertaking a remodeling project or want to give the front of your home a makeover, the professional team at Asher Lasting Exteriors can help.
We’ve been assisting homeowners in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa since 1974, and we continue to offer the same personal care and expert guidance to maximize light and enhance curb appeal.
Find out what makes Asher Lasting Exteriors your top choice for new and replacement windows. Each product is customized to fit your preferences and your home’s design, so you can bask in the sunlight behind gorgeous custom-made windows.
Contact us at (715) 402-4876 to see how a simple window replacement can boost the lighting in your home, or request a free estimate now!
