Interior expert’s top tips for adding more natural light to your home

Natural light has an enormous impact on our interior spaces. It can drive up the value of our homes and alter the mood of a room. It can generate warmth on a cool day.

No lightbulb can do all that. When you don’t get sufficient exposure to morning light, it can negatively affect your sleep, mood, and health.

Daylight also enhances the look of our interiors. Streaming through windows, it can make even ordinary spaces transcendent, as when the late afternoon winter sunbathes the kitchen table in a warm glow.

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Natural light throws details into relief, alternately drawing the eye to sunny spots, shrouding corners in cool shadows, and making dappled patterns when it is diffused and filtered. It changes constantly throughout the day and varies in tone and intensity through the seasons.

Artificial light is no substitute for daylight, but with modern lighting systems, it is possible to filter and modulate natural light to create contrast and variety.

Homes filled with natural light can feel as much as twice their size, even apartments in dense urban areas. And an abundance of daylight lessens reliance on artificial light, which helps the environment by reducing energy consumption.

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You may not be able to create more natural light, but you can enhance the natural light that your home does get. The trick is to minimise a feeling of darkness.

Rooms aren’t dark just because they don’t get much natural light, but perhaps because they’re painted a dark colour, have heavy curtains on the windows, furniture blocking the light, even dark paintings on the walls all things that can be fixed easily.

One way to maximise the daylight in a room is to improve reflectivity. A light colour scheme will help. Paint ceilings and walls in pale shades or white, preferably in a matte finish, which reflects light in all directions, rather than glossy, which creates glare. Hang mirrors to bounce light around the room.

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Another way to increase natural light is to add a skylight, which can bring in almost twice as much daylight as vertical windows, and, if you have a room extension, consider glazing its roof.

Replace heavy drapes with sheer curtains, which can create the impression of light wafting into the room on a cloud. Light coming through the tops of windows will reach the farthest part of the room, so do not block them with valances or opaque curtains.

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Venetian blinds or shutters are great options, as they allow you to control the amount and direction of daylight that enters the room.

And remember, clean your windows. It’s easy to overlook that simple way of admitting more light and energy into your home.

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To cast you and your houseguests in the best light, think of the kind of light that makes you feel and look good. It’s probably not the white-hot sun beating down at high noon, but more likely the soft, rosy glow of a sunset or the golden glow of a flickering fire.

Have you ever left the house thinking you looked great, only to be appalled by your appearance in the dressing-room mirror of a clothing store? Are you unsettled by your reflection in aeroplane lavatories?

It’s not you. It’s bad lighting. Even if you’re a supermodel, in cruel lighting, you will look like the villain in a horror movie. This is no secret to filmmakers. They use lighting to make actors look glamorous or ghastly, depending on the character.

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We all have overhead lighting but tend not to use it at night, as it can make a room feel like a classroom or gymnasium and cast pronounced shadows across the face. I’ll turn on wall and table lamps and light candles to soften the room and make the space – and everyone in it – look attractive.

Strategically placed light fixtures can supplement sunlight. And indirect lighting aimed at the ceiling, such as a torchère, can take over when the daylight on the ceiling starts to fade away.

Think of your rooms as a series of moments, depending on the time of day and your activities, there are areas that you want to accentuate and others that you want to deemphasise.

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Resist the impulse to flood a room with artificial light, unless you’re doing the house cleaning, because it washes everything out and isn’t flattering.

Add lighting above or below shelves and cabinets to highlight collections. Good table lamps are the beautiful earrings of the home. The more unexpected the lamp placement, the better.

If you have a garden, lighting, trees, water features, and other natural and architectural elements lend visual interest and drama to your home, inside and out.

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Once the poor relation of the interior’s world, light fixtures have become one of the most innovative, transformative areas of contemporary design, with offerings in a wide array of shapes, colours, and textures.

A great plus is that so much of today’s lighting is affordable. And an added benefit is that LED lighting emits much less heat, which conserves energy.

The right lighting, both natural and artificial, is uplifting, enlivening, and comforting – everything we want our home to be.

This is an extract from Natural Living by Design by Melissa Penfold, available now.

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