Does your house seem dark and small? Are your rooms crowded and uninviting to visitors? That can make winter months dreary and the summer months pretty depressing. Fortunately, it’s pretty simple to brighten up a room or your entire house with these seven easy fixes.
A Homeowner’s Guide to Brighten Up a Room
- Paint: Maybe those dark hues grabbed your eye when you bought the house, or maybe they appeared soothing in the summer months. Now, they’re soaking up all the light and turning your home into a mausoleum. That’s nothing that a few coats of paint can’t remedy. You don’t have to go crazy with bright greens or yellows or anything fluorescent. If you’ve got darker colors in a room, simply switch to a shade of white and watch the room brighten as you go. Remember to use a white primer, though, before you start adding coats or you’ll never paint over those dark colors.
- Update with Lighter Decor: If you’ve got furniture and accessories with lots of darker wood, fabric or leather, that can rob your rooms of light, too. You probably can’t do a total home makeover with your furniture, but you can start with a room at a time. Pick out your most light-challenged room and replace those oaks and dark leathers with some ash and lighter fabrics. You’ll be amazed at the difference!
- Get Rid of Excess Furniture: Speaking of furniture, it’s pretty common for homeowners to simply have too much in a given room. This gives a room a cluttered look, and if there’s lighter flooring or walls, cover up the reflective value they have. Have you considered that simply cutting down on the amount of decor in a room might brighten it up?
- Blinds, Not Curtains: If you’ve got curtains decorating your windows, chances are, they’re robbing your rooms of light. Even sheer curtains filter out a lot of the natural light that’s coming through your windows. Consider a switch to adjustable blinds instead. You can open and close the blinds for privacy, and on sunny days, you can raise them to let in the fullness of the sunshine!
- Mirrors: Mirrors are a great way to multiply the brightness in any room once you’ve taken the steps above. While the switch to lighter colors increases the sun’s reflectiveness in your rooms, mirrors exponentially reflect what you have. Mirrors aren’t necessarily a functional addition in living rooms or dining rooms, but they can have tremendous brightening effects while fitting in seamlessly in bedrooms and bathrooms.
- Windows: It could be that your colors and decor aren’t the problem at all. Maybe it’s your windows. It could be that they just need a good cleaning inside and out to clear away dirt and debris that might be blocking the sun. Or they might need to be replaced if they’re cloudy.
- Clear the Clutter: Believe it or not, all your stacked up boxes, crowded desk items, and cluttered shelves take away from the look and feel of a room. Clean lines and simple organization help your room appear bigger and brighter. So, clear out the clutter and add simple storage tools to brighten up your space.
Show Your Garage Some Love
Once you get the sun shining in the rest of your house, how about turning your extra garage space into your own personal year-round garden or even make it function as a two care garage again. With our, Garage Designs of St. Louis, expert knowledge of organization and our innovative storage solutions, your garage can transform into what you always dreamed of it being. We are more than happy to come out and show you how to turn this dream into a reality with a free estimate:
