Dark room - any ideas on how to make it lighter?

[Rowana]

The dark room is the one in the diagram with no furniture in it. The problem is the window for the that room is not very large and the room is a middle/internal room in the house. I have thought about taking the wall down (marked with red dotted line) and replacing it with crittle doors or putting in French doors for light but that’s not ideal. The blue lines are windows and there’s another room the other side of the ‘dark’ room that we can’t knock through to so there’s no scope to put another window in it.

The two problems are I want the two rooms to remain separate/private from each other as one is used for visiting guests (has a sofa bed in it) and also the sofa in the lounge needs to go against the wall which we could take down (furniture can’t be rearranged as it’s the only way it fits!) It’s already painted white and has a light coloured carpet.

I’m at a complete dead end on what I can do. Has anyone found a way round a similar problem with an internal room?

A big mirror? Opposite the window?
Different types of lighting (uplighters, desk lamps etc?)
What colour are the wall & floor? If they are dark they'll make the room seem darker.

Mirrors are good and also other reflective surfaces - polished floor etc (obviously you already have carpet, but polished furniture/metallic ornaments/glazed pictures in glossy frames etc. Anything to bounce the light around.)

Sorry, missed the bit about floor & walls.

Have you changed your lightbulbs, we switched to LEDs and they are so bright now, how about your lampshade?

Yes I think the light shade could be a bit dark so I will change that but I don’t think mirrors/shiny surfaces are going to help enough It really is a bit of a gloomy room.

I'd say embrace the darkness. Go for a inky blue and then mirrors, shiney objects or bright/white accessories will then really stand out. If it's the guest room, you could also have it as a snug/cinema room for daily use.
If you want to keep it white, than look at more lighting options at different levels. Or the cost of putting in a full length window.

Oh and convex mirrors bounce light around more.

You could try a light reflecting paint on the ceiling, Dulux Light & Space in Absolute White perhaps? I tried it in a gloomy kitchen and it did help.

Can you put a window in the wall dividing it from the other room? A friend put a (high, horizontal window) in her windowless bathroom and the effect was quite impressive, while still maintaining privacy.

Yika, do you know if it was a supporting wall? This one is so I’m not sure if putting a window in would require RSJs etc.

I’ll have a look at light reflecting paint for the ceiling - worth a try!

I mean load bearing, not supporting, couldn’t think of the proper term!

I don't know, sorry.

I would take down the wall. Check if it’s load bearing or not. Then I would replace it with partial walks that are big enough to take pocket doors either side. Therefore you can have it open or closed. A lot of wall stays in place and you can then blend it with the other room.

Failing that, embrace the dark!

Another thing you could consider is a light funnel/solar pipe/sun tube, there are a variety of names for the different systems. But they are all basically a sealed window in the roof using mirrors to channel light into a room through a flexible tube.

What style of house do you have ? We have an older house so have reinstated picture rails and now the white comes down the walls to them and it's made a big difference to the room as it's only got a pair of narrow French windows also the curtains pull totally clear of the windows

Cherry - we do have picture rails and have done exactly that throughout the house (including the dark room - but in that room it is white above and below), love it!

Good idea Bubblesbuddy, that could be an option.

Thanks Ada, I didn’t look into this option as I wasn’t sure if it was possible in a downstairs room?

We have a similar layout to you, so we knocked the wall, then closed off the door to the front room (knocked the doorway out and plastered it over), so we could put the sofa along that wall.

Lovely room Katie! Unfortunately we need to keep the two rooms separate in our house.

Crittal windows are £££. As others have said, embrace the lack of light rather than fight it.

I wouldn't go for dark colours in it but probably go for rich colours for accessories, and have it quite softly lit. A mirror on the adjacent wall to the window that gets most light will help.

I'd say embrace the darkness. Go for a inky blue and then mirrors, shiney objects or bright/white accessories will then really stand out.

We did this after trying various light colours on the walls which just made the room seem dingy. We have used a inky blue colour on all of the walls, but have kept the wall above the picture rail, the skirting boards, the ceiling, the alcoves and the window recess white, and have a large mirror and a glazed cabinet which bounce light from the window. It has all worked much better than I had expected. The room seems larger than before and during the winter it also seemed cosier. The colours also work well when we get the morning sun coming in.

We put light tunnels, but we're in a bungalow so the tubes just scone down through the attic

They come down. Scones are not available.

Now I want scones. Sod the dark room. Scones.

I would embrace the darkness! I have a very similar room in my house. We have picture rails too and below them the walls are red. It is a really dramatic, cosy room.

The way it sits in the house it was never, ever going to be a light room. It was done by the previous owners, and I was a little unsure at first but it has really grown on me.