Top Tips for Adding Lighting to Your Home

Lighting plays a major role in the happiness and comfort you feel at home, with research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology showing that the intensity – or dullness – of light has a powerful effect on our moods and emotions. Evidence shows that the sunnier the day, the more likely we are to be optimistic about aspects like wellness, finances, and general positivity.

At the same time, surveys show that Americans spend the vast majority of their time indoors – as much as 93% of their lifetime. If you find that some areas in your home lack the light and life that only the sun can bring, consider these architectural or design changes, some of which are affordable and quick to effect.

Breaking Down the Walls

Old style homes feature firm, concrete or wooden walls between rooms, valuing privacy over connection and light. If you have a wall between your living room and main hall, and the main source of light enters through the living room, knocking the wall down and replacing it with steel-framed glazing or with sliding floor-to-ceiling doors is a beautiful way to let light in.

The penchant for natural light is seen in many current home design trends. As noted by Mangum Home Builders, open kitchens banish darkness from one of the family’s most important meeting points, joining living spaces in spirit but also through the lighting they receive.

Opening Up Your Roof

A well illuminated home will need to have more than one entry point for the sun. If you are up for a major renovation, creating a glass apex in you roof will make a dramatic difference indeed. You can opt for a narrow, attic-style apex and fill in one or both sides with glass, or opt for a wider apex with a flatter top, so that light enters from the center of the apex as well.

Walking on Water

If you don’t have vertigo, a change in flooring is a modern solution to increasing the light in common spaces. If you have a two- or three-storey home, for instance, why not build a glass walkway (or indeed an entire floor) in thick glass? This will enable the sun’s rays to reach various floors at once. If you prefer an opaque look, simply leave a wide central glass panel, or fit several glass squares into a more typical flooring made from wood or stone.

Nouvelle Flooring Design

One of the cutest flooring ideas that greatly changes the amount of light reaching lower floors, is circular glass flooring. This essentially involves a perforated floor, embellished with row upon row of glass spheres that are at level with the rest of the flooring. Light therefore makes its way through over a hundred spheres, creating a beautiful pattern on the floors below.

A well lit home is crucial for home comfort and style. If you are up for a refurbishment, analyze which rooms could use more light and put your thinking cap on for new solutions. From spherical flooring to a brand new apex roof, the work and effort will be well worth it. Home dwellers will enjoy a brighter, more positive mood, but your home will also be considerably more interesting to buyers of you hope to sell it one day.