Brighten up a dark room and lift your mood.

Don’t join the dark side.

Unless you are a photographer with an at-home film development dark room, or a movie aficionado who needs a truly dark at-home movie theatre, there is no reason to tolerate a dark room in your house.

Dark, gloomy spaces are scientifically proven to affect your mood, and while sleeping in darkness is a great way to stimulate melatonin production, living in darkness just steals your joy.

If your home gets ample natural light, all you need to do is open your curtains (or blinds) but if you have a room that doesn’t receive sunlight, you will have to get creative.

Why does sunlight matter?

You might be asking why you can’t just have a light on permanently. Well, despite loadshedding and price considerations, even the best designed electric light can’t give you the mood lifting benefits of natural light. Sunlight is a great source of vitamin D and even though supplements exist, it feels like a waste to live in SA and drink Vitamin D supplements like some kind of northern European.

Only some light.

If there is some sunlight filtering into your darkest room, you can make the most of it by removing any net curtains from your windows. Just have the normal privacy shielding curtains. Once you open them, you will have unhindered sun access.

You can also paint the room in a light colour and be sure to have the wall directly opposite the window where some sun gets in, white or off-white. You can also install a large decorative mirror directly opposite the window to catch and reflect whatever light comes in.

The same goes for any outdoor walls that face the window. The window itself might not get direct sunlight, but the wall opposite may. Reflected sunlight can do a lot to brighten a room, so make the most of your outside environment. Paint that wall bright white and enjoy the reflected sunlight!

No light at all

If your room has no windows, or for some other reason doesn’t have access to even the faintest rays of sunlight, you’ll need to look to the sky for hope. The best way to naturally brighten a dark space is to install a well-designed and structurally balanced skylight.

Skylights come in all shaped and sizes

Luckily for us, our South African love for the sun has lead to a booming skylight industry and we have so many options to choose from.

We are blessed with ample sunshine. This is why so many homes and businesses have transitioned to solar energy in the past year, but a skylight can give you many of the benefits of solar lighting as well as the goodness of pure sunlight. A skylight won’t charge your phone, but it can charge your mood. Skylights can also help you to wake up easier, as you can use them like natural “sunrise alarm clocks” for most of the year.

Sundowner Skylights focus on the tubular skylight system that directs sunlight through a reflective tube directly into a work or living space and offers unbelievable lighting. Just look at their gallery of installed lights to see for yourself.

Big Sky Lights offer a variety of skylights, from domes and tubular systems to large commercial installations and their skylights can save you a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on electrical illumination. The also offer roof-windows, and patio/walkway covers.

Rainbow skylights have a great commercial footprint but also offer standard as well as custom residential options. Their skylights will have you working and living in perfect sunshine.

Find more skylight installers here.

Whether you want to cut daylight lighting costs or simply want to uplift your home with a natural Vitamin D boost, a well-placed skylight can be the answer.

‘Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.’

Albus Dumbledore