Brighten Up Your Home with These Skylight Ideas

There’s no doubt that skylights are the perfect solution for bringing more natural light into one’s home. Not only do they not take up any space, but they can help you save on the electricity as well. For starters, skylights allow the cool air to circulate during the summer heat while they also let in the warm sun rays during the winter cold. Of course, they are an amazing solution when it comes to spicing up your personal environment, since, as the name suggests, you’ll be able to enjoy the sky view, too. There are many ways you can incorporate skylights into your own home, and add more light to a darker area or corner, so check the possibilities out!

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Long side skylights

One of the biggest issues with homes that have little natural light is the fact that there simply wasn’t any other way to install the windows. After all, one has to think about the neighbors’ privacy, which is definitely the main factor when it comes to building new homes and adding windows. This is precisely where skylights can come to the rescue and illuminate your home beautifully. In order not to disturb anyone’s privacy and still get the most out of natural light, long and narrow skylights installed on the side of the roof can make a huge difference. This is a great solution for living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, and even kitchens. And if you opt for a reliable 5kW solar system skylight solution, you can save energy as well. You just need to estimate the right size of the skylights.

Bathroom skylights

Adding more natural light to bathrooms has always been an issue since no one wants to sacrifice their privacy, and especially not on this level. This is why some bathrooms have very small windows while others have none. That said, a very elegant and effective solution to the problem is undoubtedly skylights, placed directly on the ceiling. For a more relaxing and soothing experience, people who have a bathtub in their bathroom can opt for a skylight that will be placed right above the tub. This will allow natural light to fill the whole room, you won’t have to lose on space in case you have a small bathroom and you’ll get to enjoy the view while you soak.

Read more: Top 5 creative narrow bathroom ideas and design tips

Play with the shapes

Always think outside of the box when skylights are concerned. After all, not every home is designed the same and there will be different architectural elements and ceilings to work with. In that respect, you can find a skylight solution that works the best for you. It can be an oval skylight for your steeply pitched vaulted ceiling or a square row of skylights placed at the very high ceiling that cuts through the roof. The possibilities are truly endless. People tend to think that skylights have to be huge in order to work, but that’s not the case. You can choose whatever size and shape you like and scatter them accordingly for the best possible effect for your particular home.

Let the light into your hallways

Hallways always tend to be the darkest areas of one’s home, which can be a real bother and an actual safety concern. Moreover, hallways also tend to be very small, which means that adding additional light sources can not only take up your space but also make the whole area look cluttered and unpleasant. Obviously, this is where skylight installation can help you. As mentioned, you can choose the size and shape that fits your needs and the hallway shape the best. Sometimes, it’s more than enough to add a skylight above the doors, but if the general home design allows it, you have all the freedom to explore the potential of ceiling skylights. Moreover, and this goes for every room in your home, not just the hallway, you can always add more warmth to your skylight solutions by combining them with wood ceiling beams.

Read more: Natural Light Home Design: Useful Tips to Make the Most of It

Skylight porch

This is definitely one of the most popular uses for skylights, as it allows you to experience all the benefits of spending time in nature and engaging in activities with a wonderful view to your garden/backyard without actually having to deal with the elements. In general, the combination of windows and skylights works exceptionally well for a porch. You can even opt for frosted glass along the roofline in order to add protection from the afternoon sun without actually losing on the natural light. If you have a porch that needs some brightening up or you’ve been thinking about covering your patio, definitely take skylights into consideration.

The possibilities of skylights are truly endless. After all, the best thing about them is the fact that you can adjust them to your own needs and home design in order to get the best of both worlds – more natural light inside your home and less energy consumption.

Written by Amelia Atkins. July 20, 2018

Amelia Atkins is an author at Smooth Decorator and a fresh architecture student. The love for architecture and design runs in her family and she knew what she wanted to do from a very young age. You can often find her with a notepad in hand, just looking at the clouds, dreaming about the next skyscraper.