Please help me get light into this basement flat

[areyoureadytobestrong]

I own the freehold of my house. The basement had been sold off as a flat but now I've bought it.

It's very dark and I'd love to get some light in to the south facing window.

So far thinking about:

1. those light pipe things

2 excavating a bigger space in front of the window. the bit of garden I'd lose isn't an issue as it's just a passageway but I would have to cover up the excavated space with some sort of see-through glass floor (a bit silly outside) or metal grille (like on the sidewalks in New York above the subway system)

I know people on here have lots of experience of all things house and would greatly appreciate inspriration.

pic follows.

Pic. You can see my doormat, hence issue with back door

I guess there's windows at the front too? What room is is this back window in?

Is the only daylight through the grille?

You could move the kitchen door so that you can have a light well and glass doors where that back window is

ooh replies!

floppy: yes, there is a patio door at the front (but that's north facing and surrounded by trees). We are on a slope.

Hollow: if you imagine a kitchen and sitting room that have been knocked through, the picture you see is above the kitchen (so kitchen is v dark) the sitting room has glass doors so is lighter.

if the aspect was the other way around we probably wouldn't need to do anything!

btw the doormat you see is for the main back door. We could move it but it would mean losing the "utility room" (which is actually a teenage hangout room)

thank you!

Floor plans?

A larger obscured glass roof/floor would be a hell of a lot better than that metal thing at the moment.

I thought about obscured glass. The metal thing is actually in keeping/original (houses are dark millstone grit and the metalwork is black).

Shockingly poor plan of ground floor

The bit that says "number 14" is sitting room (with the jutting out bay window facing north) and kitchen on the other side. There ought ot be a hallway running north to south on the right hand side but I guess it's not that detailed.

My photo is of kitchen side which faces south.

The bit that says "stairs" is the yard area you can see in my photo.

Where the line next to the word "stairs" joins the house - that's where the back door is.

The basement floor window is that bit to the left of the strange pictures of stairs (the stairs look enormous!)

I am not used to this kind of plan....

The metal thing is actually in keeping/original (houses are dark millstone grit and the metalwork is black).

Yes it looks nice, but it isn't v practical at getting light into the downstairs flat :-)

:)

unless you are a squirrel.

We have sun tunnels in bits of our house. They are amazing, it's honestly so bright even in rooms without windows.

These ones:

www.velux.co.uk/products/sun-tunnels?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvo_qBRDQARIsAE-bsH9UwbFPM1bf4rSluhSEOGuvgv_VMFqT6sKIfV3wtPRLkP-PyfFYj88aAh1XEALw_wcB

OOOOh I was hoping someome might say that!

it's very exciting because the basement has been separate since the 1980s so there is lots of opportunity.

I might even be able to get a sun tunnel into the windowless bathroom - oooooooooooh! it's like a toy box (whether we can afford to do any of this is, of course, another matter)