Transform Your Home With Light!

There are many ways to transform the look of your home–you can replace the furniture in a living room, switch from carpet to hardwood, update the cabinets of your kitchen, or repaint the walls. If you’re finding yourself uncomfortable in a space, or if you’re just looking for a change of pace, these are all great ways to optimize your home’s beauty. But many homeowners’ overlook one of the most dramatic ways to change your home’s feel and mood–the lighting.

If you’ve searched home listings online, you have experience with just how important lighting is. Oftentimes, when people attempt to sell their own homes they will take pictures of their house that are completely unflattering. Why are these photos so unappealing? Usually because the room has poor lighting. The home might be absolutely beautiful, but you won’t see it if it’s lit like an 19th century opium den, or worse, your college dorm.

If you find yourself wanting to emulate the style of rooms you see in home magazines or furniture ads, chances are, at least half of what you’re being drawn to is lighting. Darker rooms might feel older or even dirtier, and sap your energy. Yet often homeowners won’t notice this crucial design element simply because they’re ‘used to’ their spaces being poorly lit.

To demonstrate the power of lighting, let’s look at a few examples. Check out this room transformation from the blog “Design Sponge.” Though the owner has changed several things about the room (large changes, such as the floors and paint) the most stunning part of this transformation is the lighting change, from being illuminated by a single floor lamp, to being flooded by natural light coming in from a sliding glass door (in the first picture, there is a shade over that window that completely cancels the light that would be coming in). There are also pendant lights hanging from the ceiling, which are both adorably vintage, and create additional brightness. If the shades were closed, as in the first picture, even the dimmer lighting would cast a glow on the focal point of the room (the bed) instead of being set off to the side, as it is in the first photo.

Below is another example of a space transformed by light. This one shows really clearly how great a difference lighting makes, because it’s nearly the only thing that has changed in the room–the only other changes are the sink and the fact that the cabinets have handles (not sure why they don’t have handles in the first picture, but it’s probably a helpful change.

By only changing the lighting and fixtures, this modest kitchen becomes instantly more modern and inviting. There may be other updates that the owners want to make to achieve exactly the right look, but the improvement is undeniable. 

 

This kitchen, unlike the bedroom above, doesn’t seem to have a lot of natural light available, but the addition of the fixture with multiple bulbs spread across a large space, and the numerous recessed lights takes up some of the slack for the lack of sunlight. The placement of the lights is crucial. As you can see, regardless of wattage, multiple lights spread out over a whole room is not equal to one big light slapped in the middle of the room.

Lighting concepts as simple as this make a huge difference in how comfortable we feel in a space, but lights can spark more than just comfort. Lighting can get elaborate, even artistic, as it does in this kitchen:

 

Uplighting has become increasingly popular in home design. It creates visual drama and interests, and can draw the eye and shape the space as much as other design elements like color and texture.

Yet we’ve still barely begun to explore the many ways to transform your home with light.

If it’s possible, the most transformative lighting comes from the sun. Maximizing sunlight in the home, especially in the darker winter months helps keep your mood elevated, keeps your concentration and energy levels high, and contributes to your overall health. Besides, sunlight is beautiful.

To get more sun in your home, let’s first consider the obvious–adding more windows and replacing traditional doors with sliding glass doors. Consider the places in your home where this might feasibly be done.

Another way to bring more natural light into your home is by adding skylights (also known as roof lights) or roofpipes. This is known as ‘top light’, and it’s three times brighter than the light that comes through your windows or doors.

A glazed extension is a surefire way to get a brightly lit space, and the look is both modern and classic. This one in North London works on two levels, opening up the kitchen as well as allowing significantly more light into the room.

Glazed additions, larger windows, and  three-season rooms all enhance the light in your home, and they are all perfectly possible to incorporate into your current construction (in most cases). But if you are building your home, you have the unique opportunity to design  these features any way you please, and include them in any place you’d like. 

And on that note, let’s talk about maximizing the natural light in your home. 

Whether you’re remodelling, buying or building, you should keep in mind what side of the house gets the most sun, in the morning, in the evening, and during each season.

East-facing rooms receive the most morning sun, so, if you spend a lot of morning time in the kitchen and dining room, you’ll probably want your kitchen and dining room on the east side of your house, so you can enjoy those rays. Meanwhile, west-facing rooms get the most evening light, so if you’re spending time in the foyer or sitting room during that time, you should opt for a home that has rooms that can be dedicated to relaxing family evenings on the west side. Keep in mind also that south-facing rooms get the most light in winter and hardly any in summer. Rooms that face north get fairly even lighting in both seasons. Maximizing lighting in many cases comes down to strategic interior design and choosing the right rooms for the right activities. But there is an element of construction that needs to be considered, because only kitchens can be kitchens, and only porches can be porches.

Modifying your interior (or keeping it in mind when you build) can also help you decide on features that help light move from one room to another, and therefore brighten the house as a whole. This is one of the major reasons people gravitate toward open floor plans, but a floor plan doesn’t have to be completely open to allow for the travel of light through rooms. Half-walls also create a sense of division while still allowing light to travel from brighter to darker areas. Glass stairs and open-riser stairs are also a good way to let light move through your space.

 

Once you’ve exhausted your options in terms of construction, there are several other ways to maximize the light in your home, and to utilize that light in ways that are aesthetically pleasing and lift your mood. 

If you’d like to amplify the natural light in a room, for example, hanging mirrors is a great way to do this. In fact, any reflective surface will do this to some degree, even well-buffed floors. Colors also reflect or absorb light, and if you want to amplify your light, you’ll want to choose colors that are light and cool like white and light gray for decorating. If you use wood in furniture and accents, the trend is to keep that wood light in color. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with some darker wooden accents (such as ceiling beams), as long as the other colors in the room are light. Just check out this room transformation from the Dear Lillie blog, and you can see the effect of using lighter colors in a room to reflect light. Good photography is also part of the glow-up, but a good deal of the improvement is achieved with lighter furnishings–the dark wooden beams then add contrast and “pop.” Optimizing light doesn’t mean making the place look like a hospital, of course, but rather using light to play up the beauty of the room.

We hope this blog has given you some ideas on how to transform your home with light. At Hamilton Homes, we are careful to consider every aspect of a homeowner’s comfort in the design of your space, and lighting is a huge component of that consideration. From windows, to skylights, to glass rooms, Hamilton Homes has options for light, airy homes that are not only beautiful, but promote health and mental balance. Contact us to get started! http://www.builtbyhamilton.com/contact-hamilton-homes/