Do you have a dark house?

[BlackDogBlues]

What do you do, did you do, to bring in natural light?

Love our new house....but all the windows face north. There is a tiny upstairs hall window that faces south east and gets sun at an angle.

So living room, dining room, 2 bedrooms all north facing and dim.

The hallway downstairs never gets direct light.

We are getting building work done to open up the attic an put in velux Ed so the upper hall will be lighter.

I’m thinking of opening up ceiling in hall downstairs to bring some natural light in.

What do you do to bring light in? Back garden is stupidly sunny and south facing ....and w3 are getting extension built for new kitchen that will be light.

I feel we’ve bought a lovely house but it faces the wrong way....

One of our previous houses during a posting was facing north, and we put mirrors at the back of the garden and they sent the sun inside with their reflection. We used garden mirrors which are different than indoor ones.

I agree about mirror, inside the house too.

Did you buy the house off plan OP? Didn’t you check it on a map?

THere are places you can put mirrors without frames that bring in light without being obvious - the sizes may need to be made to measure - for example the space above doors or thin strips around the windows - in alcoves.

We've just moved to a lovely house with a south facing garden. I've never experienced north facing rooms before. Our bedroom is dark in the mornings, it's brilliant for shift work! Our other rooms are the study and kitchen. It's great for the study as there's no glare. We're doing building works so the kitchen will become the utility.

I don't understand how mirrors work to get light to the front??

We previously had a house that sounds similar to yours, it faced north-south and although the kitchen at the back of the house was sunny the living room and main bedroom were pretty dark. You’ll read lots of advice telling you to go with what you have and paint it a dark cosy colour but I could never get on board with that personally! I found creamy neurals worked best for the walls, I used a lot of paint from the Dulux ‘Light and Space’ range in that house, particularly ‘Desert Wind’ and ‘Coastal Glow’. Something like Farrow and Ball ‘White Tie’ might be worth a look too. Finding the right colour for the walls took us a while but seemed to make a huge difference. The advice about mirrors is really good, both inside and out, you’re basically trying to bounce around and double up any light that comes into your house. Get some whacking great mirrors, as big as you can afford, and ideally place them perpendicular to the windows, especially that hallway window (Argos and Ikea can be good affordable sources, and you’re going to need a lot of them!) We also changed our solid front door for a glazed one which made a big difference, it might be worth thinking about replacing some of the internal doors with glazed ones so that you can steal some light from the back of the house. If you are getting the loft converted placing a Velux over the new stairs (rather than just in the new bedroom) will bring in a lot of additional light in as well. Finally, in a dark house all the old advice about windows makes a huge difference, get them cleaned regularly inside and out, when fitting blinds or curtains position them so that they don’t obstruct any part of the window when they are open, and keep the windows clear of nets/voiles if you can (or fit the sheerest you can find if you can’t). Good luck! It takes a bit more work but it’s totally doable with a bit of creative thinking:) Enjoy your new home!

Yes to mirrors. We have a north facing living room and have put a large mirror on the wall directly opposite the window to reflect the light, it's made such a difference.

My house is dark but mainly because we have a lot of trees around us. I found going from a darkish cream to a light cream has made the most difference, in fact I’m doing a third coat of paint on my landing today.

I put up two mirrors, one at the end of a dark corridor and one in my hall over the post table. The one at the end of the corridor does seem to add light but the other one doesn’t.

I also have dark carpet so have light rugs everywhere and a take shoes off policy.

I also spent hundreds buying new lights but with the new paint colours I don’t need to have them on as often anyway.

We have a north facing living room. Luckily it has big windows so it isnt too bad. Things we have done to improve the light- Light cream walls, light carpet, glazed internal doors, mirrors and chrome accessories. Keeping doors open so light comes in from the next room. Having a patio with light coloured slabs outside the patio doors seem to reflect the light in.

Skylights? Light paint and light colour furniture and flooring. If you can do work then larger windows/doors and open spaces might help too. Opening up the staircase might be an idea. You could consider rewiring for better lighting too (although I appreciate this is about natural light so might not help).

I have heard different things about reflecting mirrors. The standard advice used to be to have it opposite the window. However, by the time the light has travelled all the way across the room it has lost some of its potency. Also, you are just reflecting it back out of the window!
The modern advice seems to be to place it perpendicular to a window, as wildwood said. It is nearer the light source so it throws around a stronger light. Put a small wedge behind the frame so it is at a subtle, small angle so it bounces the light into the room, instead of just across.

Lots of obvious things -

Curtains and blinds completely off windows

No large furniture like sofas blocking part of the window. I se so many rooms with French doors / patio doors to the garden and a bloody huge sofa placed right across them.

If you have trees outside you can get a tree surgeon to lift and thin the crown

I see a lot of houses in my job and I’d say 95% of people have window coverings blocking the light, even when it’s not needed for privacy.

Our house was very dark when we bought it. Huge window treatments, dark walls, plants near the windows

Cutting back plants, brighter paint snd change of window treatments worked wonders. We also have mirrors in various places. Yes, mirrors near windows for added light. Does not send light back outside. We have a great big one at the top of the stairs and it reflects the light down the otherwise windowless hall. There’s also a skylight at the end of the hall

Ultimately, we did know I three rooms across the back into one and have massive number of bifolds. This has made huge improvement in light. Our garden is only very light at the very back due to neighbours trees.

We no longer live in a dark house. Feels amazing

The light that are in aren’t brilliant so we are going to get better lighting when the work is done and some LED strips put in too.

Love the idea of the wedge behind the mirror. We’ve just put a big mirror up perpendicular to the front window and that’ll really help.

There are some awful windowed internal doors that look quite nice now they are painted white. We’ve painted the front room cream and that is far better.

The thing with the mirrors is there’s very little light to bounce!

We are getting skylights put in which will dramatically improve 2nd floor and opening up the stairs will bring I. The lovely southern light from the attic rooms.

I think we will try and get the ceiling in the ground floor hall opened up. Maybe a bit of glazed floor.

It’s an arts and crafts house but wasn’t built with light in mind...

Love the location, space ,back garden.

Another obvious thing is to change any single bulb pendant light fittings for a multi bulb fitting.

Make sure you have the brightest bulbs you can use with that fitting.

Chose a colour temperature that you like . Personally I prefer cool in the bathroom kitchen and hall and warm in the bedroom and living room.

This advice is all really useful, thank you

We have no curtains or blinds downstairs, they were the first thing to come down!

Took out overgrown blocky tall shrubs at the front. I’m replacing with wafty trees and tall perennials and grasses.

We need more mirrors. Also going to replace lower panels of front door with glass, safety glass presumably, I need to check with the joiner.

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The extension at the back will be really light and give us somewhere we can sit and look at the garden. There is no view of the garden at the moment.

The back of the house Is a huge chimney stack that is basically the entire back of the house. So 2 tiny stained glass windows are the only south facing windows....