Dark living room

[Failingatthemoment]

Have got ( imho) a far too small window in living room. Have got an LED strip and painted walls light colours but it's still too dark. Estimated cost of larger window is in excess of 1.5k so that's a no go. Cost for new doors with glass circa 1k as due to entrance hall door being window less the only way is to get a new internal AND external door to let the light in. Have googled 'fake windows' for windowless rooms but can only seem to find the ones that are for offices and go on the ceiling. Am wondering how much these (am sure I haven't made this up!) fake windows are. Eg fake view of trees/sunny garden etc. Anyone know where I can find these and if so, how much are they? Thanks

you can get wallpaper that looks like (for example) a tropical beach or a forest etc.

Alternatively, you might want to celebrate the room being dark - have lots of bookshelves and paint it dark and make it a cosy den.

look on Houzz for ideas for dark rooms.

I have a weakness for retro wallpaper on a feature wall with forest views.

Loads of people darken their living rooms by painting them in on trend dark blues and greens anyway.

I'd do that and get lots of lovely lampshades on small occasional tables (can't think what else to call them) around the room.

Also get large mirrors up on the walls that reflect what light you do get from the windows or lamps. The mirrors will act like windows

Thanks guys - I'm not sure I was clear enough but I want more LIGHT in my room.

Have you tried searching for "virtual windows"? I'm getting results when I google that, but maybe not the types of things you're thinking of...

I'm not certain these types of fake windows will give much light, so you may be better off adding a few more lamps around the room, with mirrors to bounce back what light there is, as a previous poster mentioned.

I would embrace the dark with dark walls. You can’t get way from the fact that there is very little natural light.
But I would also add lots of mirrors and lighting.

Also (because I was curious and can't stop looking), some of the products I'm finding that can be used as ceiling-mounted LED panels are also shown hanging on the wall in some product photos.

Try searching for "flat panel lights" by Troffer, for example, or eSenLight. There seem to be companies that sell decorative light covers for these types of panels, as well.

Thanks DulcetTones

Dulux do a paint called light and space which is meant to have reflective particals for darker rooms. (Not glitter!)

Fwiw. We have a ridiculously dark sitting room. Not helped by having a catio built over the small window which further restricts light. (Only place it could go and cats are more important Imo).
So we have gone light cream silky walls, white woodwork, cream carpet, furniture is covered with bright throws and covers. Furniture is light wood. We have tall wide beam lamps and large industrial ceiling lights and mirrors which bump the light in from adjacent rooms. The dark stove and blinds offset this blaze of bright colour and enable it to feel lighter in the day but cosy by night.

@Failingatthemoment we had the same issue in our 400 year old house, mainly because the previous owners had added an extension leaving an internal window (originally external) between it and the adjoining room.

As others have suggested and because we like darker colours anyway, we decided to embrace the dark - you actually couldn't sit in there during the daytime without putting lights on - with olive walls and loads of books. As we both hate overhead lights in living rooms we had several table and floor lamps in there plus four mirrors but it still wasn't a pleasant place to sit during the day, so I avoided it for four years - it certainly wasn't a pleasant place to sit with a book!

We contemplated the extreme step of removing the extension altogether but didn't want to devalue the house by reducing its size. We looked at sun tunnels - another option for you perhaps? - and adding veluxes to the roof of the single storey extension to throw light back into the adjoining room, but didn't think any of these would make enough difference for us.

It was always on the agenda to replace the horrible windows on the extension frontage but we made the decision to open up the two spaces by removing the internal window (and adjacent French doors) - and adding structural beams obviously - which immediately helped. We then took out the whole frontage of the extension and built floor to ceiling windows that let in tons of light (south west facing).

It's made a massive difference and whilst what is now the 'dining end' will never be in-your-face bright, we have a lovely light filled living room and don't need lights on during the day now! We saved loads of £££ by building the whole lot ourselves as thousands for new oak DG windows wasn't in our budget.

Sorry, not much help, I know, but wanted to share my experience with you. Really hope you find a solution to your problem as I know how depressing dark rooms can be!