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Designer Tricks For Brightening Up a Dark Room
As so many more of us adopt the practice of working from home, being able to use as much space as possible is essential for our health and wellbeing. Little wonder then, that those tiny box rooms, dark basements, and windowless attic rooms are being pressed into service, whether they’re being turned into office space, or we’re swapping rooms around. But particularly dark and dingy rooms, without a lot of natural daylight, don’t always inspire us to get in there and really make use the space.
With that in mind, we thought we’d pull together some of the best tips and tricks that we know designers use regularly to make the most of darker spaces, so you can make the most of every inch of your home. While some of our tips will involve getting the stepladder and some paint pots out, if that isn’t an option because you’re renting, we’ve got plenty of ideas that will help you to make those darker rooms more liveable.
Why Is Natural Daylight So Important For Our Homes?
The human body needs exposure to natural daylight on a regular basis. Visible daylight can help to regulate levels of melatonin, which is an important hormone for regulating our body clocks, including sleep patterns and digestion. Going without natural daylight for long periods of time can lead to drops in production of serotonin, which can then lead to depression. This is why, during the winter months, when most of us spend the majority of our time indoors, so many of us end up feeling the winter blues, which is also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). While this might not be so much of a problem in rooms that aren’t used that often, for rooms like home offices where we spend a lot of time, we need to make use of artificial light as best we can.
Colour Schemes For Dark Rooms
If you’re able to completely redecorate your dark room, then picking your décor wisely is possibly one of the better ways to ensure that you can make the most of the space. Although choosing lighter shades is often preferred, there is always the option to use the darker feel of the room as a design feature.
Bright Whites And Neutral Colours
This is probably the most simple of design tricks for dark rooms – choose a white, or neutral toned palette. This hallway doesn’t have windows, but feels light and airy on account of the stripes on the wallpaper and the flooring, that draws the eye, and the flooring being a lighter shade. If you have pets, or children (or both!) then this might be a little too high maintenance through the cold and wet months of the year, but this design could be used in bedrooms, offices and even bathrooms with the same effect.
Sunshine Colours
If you’re looking to create a more airy, open feel to a dark space, then look to the skies for colour inspiration. Choosing the colours of the sun – those yellows, oranges, and reds – can help dark rooms to feel sunnier all year round.
Sky Blue Ceilings With White Walls
Being further inspired by the sky – consider painting the ceiling a light blue. This creates an optical illusion that helps to make the room feel open to the elements on a fine day. Many people believe blue to be a cold colour to paint a room – however, on a ceiling, paired with bright white walls, this can be a great way to evoke the warm feeling of island living in the Mediterranean – which is perfect for darker spaces. However, be sure to stick with lighter shades of blue with this look, since darker shades will make the ceiling feel as though it is lower, and may feel oppressive in a room that doesn’t get very much natural lighting.
Bring In Pops Of Colour
Although there’s a lot to be said for a bright white or neutral coloured living room, it isn’t to everyone’s taste – so if plain décor isn’t for you, then bring in pops of colour using your accessories.
Work With The Darkness
Depending on how you want to be able to use the room in question, you may decide to simply work with the darkness of the room, and choose darker décor, to create a cosy vibe. Choosing bold jewel shades works well to increase the luxurious feel of a room, and layering different types of fabrics and accessories in complementary shades of amethyst, emerald, and sapphire with pops of gold can help to create depth and drama. We think that this can work incredibly well in bedrooms, to create an indulgent boudoir effect.
Darker colour schemes can be a great way to create a cosy feel, but if you’re going to be using the room a lot and you want to brighten the space up, then look through some of our other tips to help bounce light around, and to keep the space from feeling oppressive.
Wall Décor For Dark Rooms
If plain white walls are really not your thing, don’t worry – there are a number of ways that you can use wall décor to brighten up a dark room.
Brightly Decorated Feature Wall
If neutral shades and whites are not to your taste, then don’t worry – you can most certainly go bold. We love the look of this mural wall, which quite literally brings in the sunshine, but this isn’t the only idea that works! Choosing a wallpaper with a really bold print for a feature wall can help to draw the eye, and distract from the lack of natural daylight.
Choose Matte Paint To Avoid Glare
Although it is a logical thing to assume that if we need to reflect light in a dark room, that painting your walls with a glossy finish would help. But glossy walls tend to create glare from your light fittings – which isn’t a good thing, especially if you are prone to headaches! Choosing a matte paint in a light shade will reflect the light in the best possible way, without causing glare, whichever colour you have chosen to use.
Flooring In Dark Rooms
If you’re completely redecorating, and are considering changing the flooring in the dark room in your home, then opting for a light carpet or wood finish is the best way to create light in a dark space.
Rugs
If changing the carpet, or switching wooden flooring isn’t an option, you can still brighten things up. Adding a light coloured rug can be an inexpensive way to stop the light being absorbed by dark flooring. That said, if the room has high amounts of foot traffic (especially from family members who aren’t quite so careful with wet or muddy wellies or paws!) then be sure to check that the rug you choose is easy to care for before you make your purchase.
Window Coverings >
Although in really dark rooms, it can feel counter-intuitive to add window dressings like curtains, there are many reasons that curtains are essential – from privacy and decency, to preventing light from disturbing wildlife. That’s not to mention that, for most of us, a room just looks a bit wrong without some way of covering the window, whether that is a blind, curtains, or shutters.
Colour & Material
When you’re adding window dressings to a dark room, be sure to keep things light – both in terms of colour, and weight of the material being used.
Curtains
If the room you’re decorating is a small one, then a tip that designers often use is to hang the curtains from ceiling height, rather than from the top of the window frame. This is to create the illusion that the room is bigger than it is, but in a dark room will also help to create the impression that the window is much bigger than it is too.
Where you need to be able to black out the light, add a roller blind, or a Roman blind behind the voile curtain. You won’t see it until it is needed, and it won’t block any light when you don’t want it to.
A point to note – avoid using curtains that include a swag, or other covering across the curtain pole. These will make the window dressing even heavier, and absorb the light, which is the opposite of what you need.
Choose Bright Focus Points Instead A Window
When the window isn’t the best place to draw the eye to – whether it is because the view leaves much to be desired, or there simply isn’t one – then finding other points of interest to focus on will help the room to feel brighter.
Art
Hanging a piece of art that is approximately a similar shape and size as a window is a perfect focus point. Keep your darker prints and paintings for brighter rooms though – this is the time to find artwork in bright and bold shades, or ones that evoke the outdoors. Since art is such a subjective thing, we won’t tell you what type to go for – just choose what you love, in brighter shades. Put darker, moodier paintings in rooms that get more natural light.
Be careful where you place your artwork, especially if you’ve spent a large amount of money on it, or it is one that you particularly love. If you place the piece where sunlight is able to get on it, there’s a good chance that over time, you’ll start to see damage to it as the sun bleaches it out.
Add Plants And Flowers
House plants are really good for our health and wellbeing, with some of them even well known for removing toxins from the air. But when you’re thinking about adding plants to a darker room, it can be tricky, since most plants need some sunlight to be able to survive. Luckily, there are some hardier types of plants that can, and do grow well without too much natural light – although some plants may benefit from being moved around your home from time to time in order to get some daylight occasionally.
Great examples include spider plants that are known for their air purifying qualities, money trees that are said to help reduce stress, and bamboo, which is said to bring luck and good fortune – and who doesn’t need a bit of that?! These are all hardy plants that are hard to kill, and grow well in low light conditions, so they’re perfect for the darker rooms in your home.
Use Furniture And Accessories To Reflect Light
This is a trick that designers have been using for years now in small, and dark spaces. Reflecting light that is in the room will help it to feel bigger and brighter – and there are a number of ways of doing this.
Mirrors
Using mirrors to help reflect daylight is one of the oldest tricks in the book – even the Ancient Egyptians were hypothesised to have used mirrors to light up the inner chambers of tombs and pyramids! In our homes, we don’t need anything near as complicated as that, but there is a lot to be said for hanging large mirrors across from windows, to allow the daylight to bounce around the room.
If the room doesn’t suit a large mirror, you might use a number of smaller mirrors to provide a similar effect.
Furniture With Glossy Finishes
Although we’ve advised that glossy paint isn’t right for walls (you want light to bounce, not to cause glare), reflective surfaces can definitely be a tool to help you make a dark room feel brighter.
If you’re replacing furniture, then choosing items with glossy surfaces will help to let the light bounce around your space, while choosing furniture made from clear acrylic or glass will both help reflect the light, and to let light pass through, giving the illusion of extra space.
Metallics
Adding metallic accessories can really help to reflect light around a dark space. Whether you choose silver, yellow or rose gold, or even copper accessories, they’re going to work in much the same way as mirrors. Search for metallic light fixtures, photo frames, decorative ornaments, and even artwork with metallic hues to help brighten up your space.
Furniture
The way that you position the furniture in a darker room is essential to consider too. A cluttered room will have the opposite effect that you want, so don’t over-fill the space with furniture.
In addition to choosing your furniture carefully, ensuring that you have great storage options will not only help the room to feel more spacious and light, but it will also help the room feel organised. If the room is to be mostly used by children or teenagers, this will help them to keep the room tidy – if that is ever possible!
Check What You Can Do Outside The Room
Sometimes, the design of the room isn’t the only thing causing it to be darker than it could be! If there are changes that could be made outside to make the room brighter – even if the window is tiny – then making those changes can really help to let as much light in as possible.
Change The Door
This might seem like a bit of a strange suggestion, but hear us out. If there is plenty of lighting in the area next to the dark room, then you can help to introduce more lighting to the space by choosing a door with a glass panel in it. Choosing opaque glass means that the door will provide similar amounts of privacy as a plain wooden one, but will let some of that all-important daylight into the room.
Trim Trees & Bushes
If foliage from nearby trees and bushes are blocking the light, pruning them will help you to ensure that you get the maximum possible amount of daylight into the room. Of course, if the tree or bush blocking your light belongs to a neighbour, you should always ask permission to do so – and if this is a task that needs doing on a regular basis, then it is well worth getting on good terms with that particular neighbour.
Keep Windows Clean
It might not cross your mind, but even fine layers of dirt that accumulate on windows can really make an impact on the amount of light that enters the room. Regular cleaning – whether that is done by yourself, or a local window cleaning service – will help to ensure that as much daylight as possible is able to get into your dark room.
Lighting In A Dark Room
When decorating a room, lighting experts suggest that there are three main types of lighting used:
- Ambient lighting, to provide similar levels of light in the room as natural daylight
- Task lighting, which is added for a specific purpose – such as a desk lamp
- Accent lighting, which can be used for decorative effect or to highlight specific features in the room
Experts recommend that a range of lighting options are made available in any given room, so that there is sufficient lighting solutions for however the room is used. In rooms with little or no natural daylight, that is even more important – since great use of lighting can really make up for the lack of sunshine through the window.
Ambient Lighting
Ambient lighting is key to making the best possible use of the space – a single bulb from the centre of the room simply won’t be enough in darker rooms. If you can add lights that are set into the ceiling, or use light fittings that have multiple bulbs, (and even having multiple light fittings!) this will help you to be able to use the room as though it were filled with natural daylight.
Task Lighting
Great task lighting can add to the ambient light of the room as well as being used for the specific purpose it is designed for. In this might mean reading lamps on the bedside table, in offices, table lamps, and in kitchens, under-cabinet lighting designed to illuminate worktops – but it doesn’t have to stop there. Having a range of lighting is key, remember, so layer up those lights and don’t be afraid to use them in your darker rooms.
Accent Lighting
Accent lighting is exactly what it sounds like – light that is there to add an accent! It can be used to highlight an architectural feature, such as an uplighter, or it might be a spotlight – the fixture itself is less important than what it is being used for. However, accent lighting can also add to the ambient lighting in a room.
A great type of accent lighting that has become popular in recent years is adding strips of LEDs to furniture and fittings. Not only is this easy to do, but it is also an inexpensive way to bring a welcome glow into a dark space. You can fit LEDs to different types of furniture including shelves and cabinets, both above the waist, and at ground level – the latter can help to provide the effect that the furniture is floating slightly, which can also help to create the feeling of space.
If you’re hanging art, then accent lighting can be used to show off your favourite print effectively. A simple wall light angled down towards your painting, or an angled spotlight may be all that you need – but the decision is yours.
Chandeliers
Where there is space to add a beautiful chandelier in a dark room, it is a great idea to do so. The crystals in a chandelier light fitting will reflect the light, and can create a stunning effect. And while a traditional chandelier is a perfect option if it suits the room and your taste, there are a lot of more modern versions that will provide a similar effect without compromising your style.
Choose Your Light Bulbs Carefully
When you’ve chosen the best lighting options for the room, be sure that you choose the most suitable light bulbs to give the effect that you need.
Bulbs that are bright and have a cooler, blue tinge to them replicate the look and feel of natural daylight, meaning that you’ll be able to work in the space as though you were outside on a bright day.
Consider A Lightbox
If you, or a member of your family are going to be spending a lot of time in the dark room – for example, because you’re turning it into an office, study, or other type of work space – then through the winter months, you may become at risk of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). There are ways to combat this problem that include getting outside on a daily basis during daylight hours, but if that isn’t possible due to your work schedule, then adding a lightbox to your space can help to reduce your chances of experiencing SAD.
SAD lightboxes can be found in a range of shapes, sizes, and designs to suit your needs. While traditionally they have been functional designs, in white rectangular plastic, manufacturers are beginning to realise that customers want more discreet versions that don’t look like medical equipment. Newer designs look like designer lamps and works of art – meaning that you can have form and function.
Lighting Control
If you’re using a lot of lighting in a room – and you’re likely to be in darker rooms in your home – then it might feel inconvenient having to switch lights on and off so often, especially if you have several different types of task lighting in the space. You can make this a much easier task by adding smart plugs, and controlling lighting with a voice controlled smart speaker like an Amazon Alexa device, Google Nest, or an Apple HomePod – then all you need to do is tell Alexa, Google, or Siri which lights you want switching off at once.
Tips For Specific Rooms In The Home
While much of our guidance can be used throughout the home, there are some tips that we’ve collected up for specific rooms in the home.
Kitchen
If you’re completely remodelling a dark kitchen, then now is the time to use the space in the best possible way. Where it is possible, try and keep kitchen units away from windows to improve the amount of light that can get into the room. That is most commonly possible where a kitchen has one long wall for units to be installed along. Other great advice we’ve come across includes:
As in other rooms, white, or pale kitchen units will reflect light the most. You can consider replacing doors on units, or painting existing units, if your budget doesn’t stretch as far as a complete kitchen remodel.
When you’re choosing worktops, a light shade is best – although a slightly patterned material such as a marble effect is infinitely more forgiving than plain white work surfaces.
Splashbacks can be a massive help in the quest to illuminate the room– whether you look at polished glass, stainless steel or simple tiles, the reflection will help reflect light.
In single storey kitchens, fitting a skylight is perhaps one of the most effective ways to allow natural light into the space.
Bathroom
Although a cocoon-like bathroom might be great when you’ve got an hour to soak in the tub, it isn’t quite so ideal to help you get going first thing in the morning. Not only that, but if you don’t have enough light to apply makeup, or to shave, things can definitely get a bit tricky.
White bathroom suites are the norm for most modern bathrooms – so if that is what you have, that can stay put. Choosing white, or light coloured tiles and paint will work to increase the brightness of the space. For flooring, stay with a white, or off-white shade, whether you go for tiles or vinyl flooring (just don’t be tempted by carpet!).
If it is possible, use glass panels for shower screens to prevent light from being blocked. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, or you’re in a rented home, then a clear shower curtain will let the light through – and if you want to protect your modesty a little more, search for one with a 3D effect or a slight pattern.
Adding extra lighting is by far the best way to make a dingy bathroom feel more usable, so get an electrician to help you fit recessed lighting. While this is an additional cost, it is well worth getting a professional in to do this job – you don’t want to mess about with electricity and water!
Mirrors play a huge role in the bathroom, which means that the bigger the mirror, the brighter the bathroom will feel. Be sure to add lighting to your mirror too – whether that is on either side of the mirror, or you replace the mirror with a backlit one. This won’t just help you to increase the light in the room, it will also help you to ensure you’re looking your best before you go out and face the world in the morning.
Bedroom
As in all our other rooms, choosing white or near white décor, with light flooring is the best way to ensure that your bedroom is as bright as possible. If you’re worried about the space feeling too sterile and hospital-like, layer different textures, or look for fabrics that have patterns in light colours.
If you plan to have a dressing table, then consider whether you can have it – and the mirror that goes with it – adjacent to the window, so that you can see yourself in the best possible amount of daylight, while reflecting it into the room.When you’re choosing wardrobes and other storage, consider adding mirrored doors.
Although you might need to create complete darkness for sleeping in a bedroom, you can still opt for gauzy, voile style curtains that let the light in during the day. Simply add a blackout roller blind that can be rolled up to uncover the window completely in the morning.
For bedrooms that are really dark, you might need to get creative – because a single ceiling light and one on each bedside table isn’t going to be enough. Adding strips of LED lighting behind headboards, above wardrobes or book shelves, inside cupboards – there are so many options to consider. If you’re adding multiple sources of lighting in your bedroom, we definitely recommend adding smart plugs so you can turn lights off with your voice – you don’t want to get comfy in bed and then be forced to get up to turn all the lights off!
A point to note about bedroom lighting though – be sure to choose warm white bulbs, rather than those with pure white, or blue-tinged bulbs. This is because our brains can’t tell the difference between pure white, and blue-tinged lights and natural daylight, which means that we’re much more likely to stay awake. This won’t happen with warm white bulbs.
Study and Home Office
In contrast to the bedrooms, in home offices, you want those pure white, or blue-tinted bulbs, to keep you alert. As for other home office décor – well, follow the tips and tricks we’ve mentioned throughout this post. Choose light shades for walls, and if you’re buying new furniture, then look for light colours.
Be sure to choose lighting carefully – those LED strips we keep mentioning are a great idea – and make the most of those Zoom calls by getting a great ring light. It won’t just flatter your visage on camera, it’ll add to the ambient lighting too!
When arranging furniture, if it is possible to place your desk near the window, this will help you to get the most natural daylight. Whether you put your desk adjacent to, or under the window, it is well worth making the most of the daylight – even if it is a tiny amount.
Living Room
In living rooms, again, you can follow most of the guidance we’ve given previously – choosing brighter wall décor, and choosing furniture in lighter shades rather than walnut or mahogany is going to keep your living room from feeling too dark. Look for glass, or acrylic furniture that lets the light stream through.
You don’t have to go all-bright in living rooms though – you could create a cosy, snug living room that really plays well to the hygge trend that is perfect for winters in the UK. Your living room is for relaxing, after all!
Final Thoughts
With the right approach and use of designer tips, it is possible to give a rarely used, dark and dingy room a light, fresh and airy feel. What is most important to remember though, when working with designer tips, is that your home is yours – so if you don’t love the idea of something, don’t worry – choose another idea!
We love some of the ideas that we’ve come across while writing this post, so if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to see what we can do with our attic room…!