5 Methods to Enhance Natural Light In Your Custom Home Design

Lighting decides the overall vibe of your home. Whether you are trying to create a more positive mood, highlight certain features of your home, or try to make a small room look bigger, natural light helps you achieve all of that.

Custom home builders in Kelowna always focus on maximizing the sources of natural light in your home. Natural light doesn't just influence the general atmosphere in your home but delivers many other benefits.

Benefits of Natural light in Your Kelowna Home:

• Increases Energy Efficiency of Your Home

Natural light doesn’t just illuminate your home but keeps it warm during the cold days. You get to cut down on your energy bill when you allow natural light into your home.

• Improves Air Quality

Natural light also contains a lot of energy and kills off bacteria, germs and all kinds of air-borne pathogens from the indoor air. You’ll feel like breathing fresher air after the morning sun sterilizes your room.

• Elevates Your Mood

When you're exposed to natural sunlight for several hours throughout the day, it increases the blood circulation in your body and improves your well-being. As a result, you stay cheery and more proactive throughout the day.

Improves The Value of Your Home

New housing developments in Kelowna with more sources of natural light are always in high demand. Hence, they have a higher value in the market.

Now that you're aware of the benefits of natural light, it’s time to learn how you can maximize it in the design of your new custom home.

Tips to Increase Natural Light in Your Custom Home Design:

1. Choose Light Colour

Deep and rich colours look very bold and create a fantastic look when paired with the correct furniture pieces and decor in a room. However, dark colours also make the room darker and create a gloomy look. They are bad at reflecting light and force you to use several additional sources of artificial light to lighten up the space.

Kelowna home builders recommend reserving dark paint schemes for rooms that do well with dim lighting. For instance, your wine cellar or game room would look amazing with dim lights and dark colours. Opt for white or soft pastel shades in the remaining rooms, so that natural sunlight is effectively reflected and diffused throughout the room.

2. Add More Windows

Capture as much natural light as possible with the help of windows. If privacy isn’t a concern, consider adding floor-to-ceiling windows that provide you with a panoramic view of the outside scenery. Opt for sliding glass doors wherever possible. Make sure to place windows strategically to light up the dark spots of a room. For instance, if there is a dark stairway, place a window opposite that spot to light up that area.

3. Install Skylights

Have a room without any windows? It doesn’t need to be dim or solely dependent on artificial light sources. Add a skylight to introduce sunlight into your kitchen, bathroom or other such rooms. Skylights provide a view of the sky and give you a connection to the outside world. If a direct path between the roof and a room isn't available, use sun tunnels. These contractions use mirrors and bent tubes to redirect light from the room to a dark space like the basement. While they allow in a lower amount of sunlight compared to windows and skylights you can use multiple sun tunnels to compensate. New townhomes in Kelowna often have such features added to the design.

4. Switch to An Open Floor Plan

Another way of eliminating dark corners is to adopt an open floor plan. As the name suggests, open floor plans are open spaces where two or more traditional rooms are fused into one open space. For instance, the kitchen, living room and dining space can be fused into one space. This kind of floor plan reduces the obstruction of light and makes spaces brighter.

5. Use Sun Shades

Natural light is great as long as it’s not intense. However, drapes, screens and curtains used to block the sun, completely darken the room. Instead, consider adding a sunshade outside the window to block out the intense and hot sun while allowing in a decent amount of natural sunlight. If privacy is a major concern, use smart screens that automatically adjust to allow for the perfect amount of sunlight.

As you apply these modifications to your custom home, remember the landscape. Ensure that vegetation like bushes, shrubs, hedges, trees, and plant containers are thoughtfully positioned. They must not block the sunlight or hinder the flow of natural light into your living spaces.