Natural light in a home is always better than artificial light. It bathes your room in a rich full spectrum hue that light bulbs can only hope to duplicate, and it increases your body’s feel-good serotonin levels. Best of all, natural light will not come due at the end of the month with the power bill. It’s free.
Many homes were not built with natural light in mind. Short of picking up your house and turning it in the direction of the sun—or altogether relocating it to a sunnier location—there are a few remodel projects you can do that significantly increase interior natural light.
Use Lighter, Brighter Interior Wall and Ceiling Paints
Painting walls and ceilings white or another light color may seem like an easy way to add more light, and it is. But if you’re not quite convinced, consider these tips:
Your best bet: Interior wall color is the number one way to reflect natural light into your room. Light Reflectance Value, or LRV, can range from near to 100-percent for pure white down to close to 0-percent for black. All colors in-between will have greater or lesser LRV.
White is the brightest: Nothing is brighter than white. If you really don’t like white but want more light, look into whites with some other color tones; white comes in a huge range of subtly different shades.
Trying out lighter hues such as modern palettes of pastel colors will definitely increase the level of natural light reflectivity inside your condo unit. Hues of avocado, pink, and teal are few of the walls or ceiling paints you should try this year.
Ceilings are important: Most ceilings are white for a reason: White reflects light. And since ceilings often go unnoticed when surveying a room’s decor, there’s no design penalty for going with white. Flat white is preferred over glossier sheens because a matte finish reduces glare, and ceilings don’t need the washability of glossier paint because they don’t get touched regularly as walls and trim do.
Turn Your Walls Into Mirrors With Higher Gloss Paint
“The higher the gloss level,” notes paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams, “the higher the light reflectance–more light will bounce off a surface painted with a high gloss paint than one with a matte sheen.”
In other words, by using glossier paint for your walls, you give them a mirror-like effect. And as everyone knows, mirrors reflect light.
This does not mean that you must use high-gloss paint, though you can if you wish. It means going one notch up in a glossier direction. So, if you love matte, try eggshell. If you love eggshell sheen, try semi-gloss. If you have a remarkably dark room, you may want to consider glossy paint for your walls, even though it is not typically used on walls. Just be aware that more gloss means more glare from strong light, especially artificial light.
Adding mirrors as part of your interior design will also make your condo unit appear larger than usual as it provides a visual continuity in your condo room.
Use Glass or Highly Reflective Tiles
Glass tiles are the next best thing to installing mirrors on your kitchen or bathroom backsplash. In the right light, glass tiles reflect close to 100-percent of the light that hits them.
Second to glass, install highly glossy ceramic tiles for a nearly equal reflective effect. Compare low-reflection (and trendy) backsplash materials like concrete or pallet wood against even an ordinary white subway tile backsplash. In terms of reflection, the subway tile is superior to many other materials. And at just a few dollars per square foot, it is far cheaper, too.
For maximum reflection, turn up the light even more and install metallic backsplash tiles.
Clean your Windows
Oftentimes, the most straightforward solutions are the best. If your windows provide a clear path for light and your colors and surfaces reflect it, you must still ensure that your light source is clean.
Similar to the way headlights on a car accumulate dust, dirt, and film, your windows will gradually lose their output (or, in this case, input) of light. If you want the most natural light possible in your apartment, clean the inside of your windows at least once a month and request that the super clean the outside a couple of times a year.
Replace Wall Space With Glass Blocks
Not the easiest fix but an effective one, replacing sections of your exterior wall with glass block brings in a fair amount of natural light where otherwise no light would be entering your home.
Glass block is not a structural replacement for a wall stud system, so headers must be installed over the block sections, as you would with any window or door unit.
Add Reflective Room Features
A Sputnik lighting fixture creates a dramatic effect for this master bedroom.
When sunlight reflects on a chandelier, it sends more light into the room. And the chandelier doesn’t even need to be turned on for this to happen.
Think in terms of shiny, glossy, and reflective room elements: mirrors, sconces, and shiny cabinet pull.
Choose the Best Condo Location in a Building
Natural light can be an aspect where the location of a condo unit can be variable especially when you are in a condo building in between other buildings or your unit is in the middle of the building floor where light is obstructed by outside structures.
But with these simple hacks, you might find a way to increase the natural light coming into your condo unit. Try these inside your home and find a more refreshing condo unit with ample light to make you feel alive every day.
In Camella Manors you can also find natural beauty with a refreshing sub-urban-themed community available in Lipa, Caloocan, Puerto Princesa, Bacolod, Butuan, and Davao City. This newest brand of high-quality and exclusive condo villages located in the most developed cities outside Metro Manila offers you a new way of condo living as you get closer to a refined nature under several pine trees inside one community.
Own your piece of condo unit for sale to any Camella Manors projects nationwide today. Simply inquire through our inquiry form or might as well message directly via the official chatbot here or directly send us a message via our official social media platforms.
