Planning your Home
How To Brighten Your Home
When it comes to designing your home, certain design choices will not only impact how your home looks, but how your home feels. Light is one of the most powerful tools in enhancing a home, capable of making a space feel more expansive, bright and warm. When light goes unused, your space can be left feeling cold, dark and uninviting.
Beyond just your home’s experience, natural light also helps to boost mood and wellbeing whilst lowering your energy bill. For G.J. Gardner Homes, light is one of the core elements we consider throughout the entire home building journey, from initial planning stages to the décor finishes. By prioritising light, we ensure your home is comfortable, functional and efficient.
When it comes to mastering your home lighting, it’s all about balance. Whilst a bright space is great, too much light could surge the cost of cooling and disrupt the flow of your day. For G.J.’s design team, a bright home isn’t about just accessing light, it’s about accessing light at the right times and in the right places.
Our top 4 tips for bright homes
Home orientation
With each project, we aim to work with the land you build upon to boost your home’s cost-efficiency and performance. By considering the movement of the sun each day and through the seasons, our homes can tap into natural light, heating and cooling and air flow. Bright homes rely on an optimal orientation to keep the home filled with natural light, year-round. We tend to make the longest side of your home face north to south, and cluster the most used living spaces to the north as well. Through this orientation, we brighten the living hub from morning to the afternoon without relying on electrical lighting.
Window Variety
You only get the most out of your home’s orientation when you have enough windows to let the light in. Through our emphasis on indoor-outdoor central living spaces, most G.J. Gardner Homes’ designs incorporate glass doors to provide floor to ceiling windows. From there, clerestory windows are another great way to boost the brightness of your home, with light filling the room from a high point. By incorporating a range of windows, you can ensure your home receives as much natural light as possible, whilst planning and landscaping will maintain your privacy as well.
Light colours
Light breeds light so choosing fixtures and finishes in light colourways can help boost the feeling of brightness throughout your home. Colours like white, grey and cream reflect light to make it feel like there’s more of it. By opting for bright and light décor, wall colours and accents, your home’s interior can make the most out of any light that filters in. Light hues bounce light around a room to boost the overall brightness.
Plants and natural materials
Plants and other natural materials can be a great way to take advantage of the extra light in your home and make the space feel brighter and fresher. House plants have surged in popularity over the years as homeowners reap the great benefits that come with surrounding yourself with nature. Beyond boosting mood and alleviating stress, plants add a brightness to any room through their pop of colour, whilst introducing a feeling of warmth and peace. If it’s placed in spots that provide the optimal amount of light, plants along with natural timbers and stones can help add life to a space.