Making a dark living room brighter: how to bring in more daylight

Making a dark living room brighter starts with the question of where the light comes from. In most terraced and semi-detached houses, daylight only enters through the front and rear walls, and that light only reaches a few metres into the room. Small changes such as light colours and mirrors help a little. If you really want more light in your home, you bring it in from above, through the roof.

Why your living room is dark

A rule of thumb from daylight design: daylight through a window in the wall reaches about two to two and a half times the height of the window head into the room. With windows up to 2.2 metres high, that is around 4.5 to 5.5 metres. A living room 8 to 10 metres deep therefore almost always has a gloomy zone in the middle.

An extension makes that worse. The room gets deeper, and the window in the old rear wall disappears or becomes a walkway. The spot that used to be by the window is now in the middle of the house. That is why so many extensions get a roof lantern in the extension.

Making a dark living room brighter with small changes

Before you start building, you can already gain a little with not much effort:

These measures spread the light better, but they do not add any. If there is too little glass, the room stays dark in winter.

• Light, matt colours on the ceiling and walls
• A mirror opposite or next to a window
• Glazed internal doors or a glass wall to the hallway
• Curtains that can hang completely clear of the window
• Cutting back shrubs or trees right in front of the window
• A light floor or a light rug

Light from above: why a roof lantern does so much

A horizontal or gently sloping pane sees the whole sky. A window in the wall sees half of it at most, and often less because of neighbours, trees and overhangs. That is why roof glazing gives roughly two to three times as much daylight as a wall window of the same size. The light also reaches deep into the room, exactly where the wall windows fall short.

A mono-pitch roof lantern just behind the old rear wall brings light to the middle of the house. And on an extension against a taller wall, a wall-abutting lean-to gives both overhead light and side light.

A dark kitchen or a deep extension

In many homes the kitchen is at the back of the room or in the extension, exactly where the light is weakest. Yet that is where you want to see what you are doing. A roof lantern above the worktop or kitchen island gives even light, without your own head casting a shadow on the worktop. More ideas under a roof lantern in the kitchen.

In a deep extension, a roof lantern along almost the full length makes the difference between a dark passage to the garden and a place where you like to sit. What that roughly costs is covered in the cost of an extension with a roof lantern.

More light without too much heat

More glass also means more sun. In winter that is welcome, in summer it can get warm under a roof lantern. Facing north or east that is rarely a problem, and the light is soft and even. Facing south or west, solar control glass or a screen for your roof lantern is sensible.

Choose the glass with care. HR++ double glazing is more than enough for most living rooms and open kitchens, especially facing south. Triple glazing mainly makes sense facing north or west, or above a bedroom. The trade-off is explained in triple glazing or HR++ double glazing.

Frequently asked questions