Dark room - light solutions

[TheCatsWhiskers]

My mother is in the process of buying a house, it is perfect except that the living room is quite dark.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make it seem lighter please?

The room currently has a dark green carpet which makes it worse, we will be changing this to a cream one.

Improve the lighting if needs be, add a mirror to reflect light through the window into the room. Dulux do a range of paint which is designed to be more light reflective too.

That's a really good point, there was no mirror, they provide a lot of reflective light.

I'll look into the paint, thank you.

How big is the window and which way does it face? It the window is smallish and the room faces North, then you won't be able to make it very light. Also have a look outside - is there anything blocking the light, eg a tree or other houses? If none of the above applies, then light colours, clean windows, mirrors to reflect the light etc should improve it considerably.

There is a big bay window which faces south, I have worked out that we can put I mirrors which should help. It may also be possible to put in a window an one side.

Make sure the curtain draw to the wall, not hang over the window.

One of the things we did in our north facing tunnel of a lounge (also with green carpet and green walls) was put in 9 downlighters. MASSIVE difference.
Had put in a huge mirror before that but made little difference to the gloom. Also stripped the green walls back to the original plaster. Little difference.
Downlights on pretty much all the time.

With a big bay window facing south, the room is bound to be flooded with light. I wouldn't worry to much about mirrors and other tricks. Changing the carpet and painting the room light will definitely suffice.