The transformation that good Natural lighting can have on a home is not something to be underestimated. It can help the home feel brighter, sunnier, and even cleaner. Now that the days are getting longer if you feel like you’re not getting the sunny vibe that your home needs, here are a few tips that might be able to help you. Take control of the natural light in your home and you can make a real difference.

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Use color to your advantage.

If you’re not able to actively increase how much natural light gets into your home, then it’s all about maximizing how much there is. The reflectiveness vs. the absorption of light through the colors and textures throughout your home is going to play a big difference. As such, the color you put on the walls can really help brighten rooms up or darken them, as you wish. For maximizing your natural light, you should be focusing on using bright or light color schemes, whether it’s something airy like a sky blue or a neutral yellow to a bolder yellow or orange. Reflective wallpaper can work even better at this.

Get reflective.

Of course, if you’re talking about using reflectiveness to make your home better at using natural light, then color is good, but you’re going to see even more of an effect from actual reflective surfaces. Naturally, mirrors are the most reflective thing you can ask for in a home and they can do a truly good job of helping light bounce better around a room. They’re not going to act as light sources, but they can make a difference in the overall brightness of the room. What’s more, if you have a smaller room, mirrors are also better at creating the illusion of more space, so a good wall mirror can make a big difference in the entire vibe that a room gives off.

Use larger doors and windows.

Perhaps you want to do more than maximize the sunlight that your home already gets, however. Perhaps you want to actually see more natural light in and throughout the home. There are plenty of ways to do that but the best way is to rethink your doors and windows. If you’re in need of a replacement, see if you can use one that allows more light through naturally by having more glass surface area for it to go through. If you’re willing to put in more, then options that are much larger like customizable patio door solutions are going to make a huge difference. It might take a little work and some wall removal, but it’s more than possible and, in many cases, worth it for the difference it can make to your lighting.

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Paint your overhangs and eaves.

You have to consider the angle at which the sunlight hits your home, as well. The sun isn’t always going to be in a position to shine directly through your window, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get more of it in there all of the same. Your overhangs, eaves, and any fixtures that surround your windows or hang above them are going to influence how much light comes in as well. If they’re lighter and brighter colored then, just like with the interior, they’re going to reflect more of the light that hits them, rather than absorb them. As such, painting those overhangs and eaves can do a lot of good. White paint is typically the most reliable option for increasing the lighting potential of something.

Add lighter treatments to your window.

When the light hits your window, what is there to block it from coming in? Your choice of window treatments is going to make a significant difference. Of course, the way to let as much light as possible through is to simply have no window treatments but that’s not always a viable option. Heavy curtains are going to block more light, even when they’re not pulled, as they tend to hang around the edges of the windows. Instead, you could opt for something like lighter or more translucent drapes that don’t affect it as much. The option that might work best could be blackout blinds, which are better at keeping out light when you don’t want it but tend to have a very slim profile when they’re open and can be drawn to the sides of the windows entirely, as well.

Interior materials matter.

Just as what’s on your walls matters, so too will the surfaces and materials throughout the home. For instance, when it comes to your floors, smoother surfaces like a decent hardwood floor installation will bounce light more effectively than carpet, especially if it’s kept clean. Similarly, your furniture will play its role, too, with lighter fabrics and upholstering reflecting more light than the alternatives. If you’re willing to use more reflective surfaces or lighter surfaces, or even just covers for your furniture, then it can help you make the room look a lot brighter as a result.

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Let the light through your walls.

If you really want to get light through more of the home, then at some point you’re going to have to look at your walls. The single most effective solution would be to hire a wall removal specialist to open it right up, but that might not be the best for privacy reasons or because you simply want to partition different parts of the home. If that is the case, then you might want to look at replacing your walls with doors that can have a drape or blind pulled over them, or you can even replace them with glass walls. This glass can be misted or otherwise incorporate a design that allows for some privacy and separation of spaces, but still lets light through it much better than an opaque wall.

Consider skylights and solar tubes.

If you’re willing to do work on the home itself to get more light in, then it’s not just through the windows that sunlight can get inside. It can come from above, as well. Installing solar tubes can be costly and it isn’t for every home, since it only really affects the floor directly beneath the loft/ceiling, but it can be a great way to let in more natural light for those homes that it can apply for. Aside from helping you get more sun throughout more of the day, it also comes at the benefit of not sacrificing your privacy at all. The same goes for installing skylights, which are slightly different but operate under much the same principle.

Greenery is good too!

It might not be immediately obvious that plants can help your home look brighter. After all, plants absorb sunlight, so how can they give it off? Indeed, if you position plants directly in front of the window, they can block a little light (but also add some privacy.) If you position them well, however, plants can take on the glow of the sun in a way that makes them look much brighter, and the light green color of some is genuinely reflective, so they can do a little to lighten up the whole home. What’s more, plants simply give the room that they’re in the feeling of being a little closer to the natural world which can have a relaxing and pleasing effect.

With the tips above, you can make use of the natural light that your home needs and change its whole vibe. It doesn’t have to cost that much, either.

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