29 May Unexpected Places to Add Windows for Better Natural Light

Natural light transforms your home and your family in so many ways. Bringing more of Mother Nature’s illumination inside can reduce your utility bills, open up small areas, and make them feel more generous and alive. And, according to doctors, exposure to natural light, especially regularly within your home, lifts your mood, helps you sleep better, and can reduce symptoms of seasonal depression.

If you’re planning new construction, you can add and arrange your windows to help bring in more natural light. But, finding unexpected places to add windows to your current home for better natural light isn’t as difficult as most Quad Cities residents may imagine. In fact, new construction or not, you can make some dramatic home improvements by adding windows where no one expects. Here are our ideas for unexpected places to add those windows.

Unexpected Places to Add More Natural Light to Your Home

Adding windows to often overlooked areas of your home, like laundry rooms, powder rooms, staircases, and the like, instantly elevates and brightens your home. You can bring more daylight into your living areas, reduce artificial lighting, and create a lovely, unexpected aesthetic.

Staircases, Landings, and Hallways

Staircases, landings, and hallways tend to be simply functional as they connect rooms and provide a path to get from one area to another. They rarely get their own natural light. But these darkened areas of your home provide the perfect canvas for adding windows for better natural light. A tall, narrow window at the top of the stairs, in a landing space, or midpoint along the staircase, adds the perfect amount of natural light. Prefer a dramatic touch? Add small translucent glass panes alongside the treads of your stairs. 

Bathrooms and Powder Rooms

Obviously, in your bathroom or powder room, privacy is a concern. But that doesn’t mean you have to rely on the typical small frosted window on the exterior wall that most bathrooms utilize. Instead, think about flooding your bathroom by placing a window in the ceiling. Natural light drenches your bathroom through ceiling windows or skylights. In a half-bath or powder room, consider a sun tunnel instead. These smaller spaces tend to feel claustrophobic without the benefit of added windows for better natural light. 

Transom Windows for Better Natural Light

Transom windows were popular in homes back in the early 1900s. These horizontal panes installed above doorways are making a comeback. Much like sidelights, the transom above an exterior door allows light from the outside to illuminate your foyer. When you add a transom to your interior doors, you borrow natural light from other areas of your home without losing wall space or privacy. 

Garage Doors

Modern garage doors with glass panel inserts are popular these days. You can take that natural light boost up another notch when you install clerestory windows just below the roofline. These windows are high enough to prevent anyone from entering, and their placement preserves your privacy as well. 

Kitchen Skylights for Better Natural Light

There’s nothing like walking into a sunny kitchen for your morning coffee to start your day. In addition to your kitchen windows, consider a skylight for better natural light. A vented skylight in the kitchen helps the avid home chef diminish cooking odors. Positioned directly above your kitchen workspace or island improves the lighting in that space dramatically, enhancing your safety.

More About Clerestory Windows and Floor Level Windows

Clerestory windows in kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms, and essentially any area of your home are a very effective way to introduce ambient natural light while preserving wall space. They are unobtrusive, modern, and very much on trend. They add a stylish architectural detail inside and out.

Floor-level windows, or windows placed six to 12 inches off the floor, create pools of ground-level light. They enhance in so many unexpected ways. Their unusual placement makes you feel connected to nature outside the window. They add just enough natural light to areas like a reading nook or stair landings to gently illuminate without disrupting the ambience.

Pantries and Closets Benefit from Natural Lighting

Small spaces like pantries and closets often require you to be able to read a can or box, or distinguish colors. These spaces benefit greatly from the addition of natural light. Add a sky tunnel or frosted clerestory window for both privacy and better lighting. Your eyes will thank you!

Professional Design Experts You Can Trust

When you place windows in unexpected areas of your home, they do more than just flood the space with light. Unexpected windows add drama, create a different aesthetic, and work as a design element on their own. 

To get the most out of adding windows for better natural light, make sure your placement enhances as much space as possible. Look for hallways, low walls, ceilings, and above your doors, and work backwards to the closest exterior wall. And before you make another move, please contact the professionals at Seiffert Home Design. We can help you design your dream home with as much natural lighting as you desire, or help you determine where to install windows in your current home. Please reach out to us today.