It is often the case that people have lovely big homes but are not happy with the amount of light that they get in them. Houses that are quite deep and have rooms located the centre of the property suffer most as light is not sufficiently channeled to those areas. People can do something about this of course by adding skylight windows, reducing furniture or using white dining room furniture for example, and even restructuring parts of the house to open them up. However, most of these methods are very costly and time consuming and there are far easier ways to brighten up your life.

Mirrors. One of the most effective and efficient ways of manipulating light is to use mirrors. This is because they are very efficient at reflecting light, hence you can see yourself very well in them. Place them in carefully selected locations on walls so they reflect light from the window straight out of the room door. By locating a mirror just outside the door, the light can then be picked up and moved on down the hall or into other rooms or areas of the house.Use this trick wherever you are lacking light to get better distribution and an all over feeling of space. It’s particularly useful when you have lots of bedroom furniture cluttering up a room, and not much light to start with.

Glass. If you want to disperse light around a room rather than have it concentrated in one area then use glass. Using wine glasses on shelves and crystal vases on bedside tables which refract light and send it out at all angles giving an all over glow.Be careful not to use too much glass however as you can end up diluting the light just a little too much.

Combine. For the ultimate light manipulation, try using both the techniques described above in combination. Use mirrors to direct light through glass objects and then smaller mirrors to pick up the refracted light and move it on. You’ll be amazed at just how much extra light you can have without even using electricity.

Tags: home, light, mirrors, reflection, refraction