Lighten Up! Ways To Brighten Up Your Home in the Darker Months

The temperatures may be down, and the days may look dull, but this doesn’t have to extend to your home. It’s possible to do some upgrades to bring in the brightness to maintain the cheerful vibes in your home. In this guide, we’ll take you through how to handle it:

1.  Declutter

You may have the best lighting or the best colors in your home, but the dark and dull look will remain constant if your home is cluttered. Allowing a free-flowing air into your home is a necessity. It may look oppressive going through everything in your home to identify what needs to be discarded, but in the end, it will be beneficial to you.

If you have not decluttered your space in a long time, ask your close friends or family members to be part of the process. Do it orderly by moving through each room together and arranging the needs you don’t need into a separate box. Later, you can put them up on sale or donate.

2.  Get Brightly Colored Furniture

Dark-colored furniture will always make the room look dull. For valid reasons, most people will prefer not to use white, and it’s understandable. However, blue, light gray, and cream colors will also do the trick.

Replacing the furniture certainly is an expensive option, but luckily, you can get couch covers, throw pillows, and blankets in any color you want and clean them when they get dirty. Look for the best quality accents customized to suit your seats and switch them up whenever you want.

3.  Clean Up and Rearrange

Again, you may have all the things in place, but a cloud of dust would be the stumbling block to achieving the brightness that you need. Once you’re done with decluttering, do a thorough cleaning of the walls, floors, windows, lighting fixtures, rugs, carpets, and dust, and wipe every other surface.

Once you’re done with that, rearrange everything back in place and focus on the furniture more this time around. Arrange them in an open floor plan layout that ensures light is not blocked from the windows. The open floor plan layout equally makes your rooms appear brighter and adds a spark of cheer to them.

4.  Think about the Exterior

As you clean up your home’s interior, don’t forget the exterior as well. The trees and hedges may be blocking light from getting through the windows sufficiently. If you have such a situation, reach out to lawn or tree experts to see what needs to be done and cut and trim the barriers. After manicuring your greenery, you will undoubtedly notice the difference.  

Nature instantly adds a natural pop of color to a dull space. Head to the greenhouse and get insights into bright plants that will work for your home. If you don’t want the naturally-growing options, get opinions of the available faux options that will still lighten up your space, then arrange them in an exceptional manner that reflects the beauty that you need.

5.  Add Bright Accessories

When adding accessories, it’s necessary to be smart about them to ensure that you don’t color crash the colors. You also don’t have to discard the pillows that you have to brighten up your space. You can add temporary colorful covers to your bedroom and living room pillows and also use brighter beddings for your bed.

Try to use brightly colored throw blankets when relaxing in the living room. Lastly, you can update your wall art by adding colorful frames to them or, instead of buying bold and meaningful artwork and strategically hanging them in the rooms you want to.

6.  Optimize Lighting

Besides cleaning the windows and arranging your furniture accordingly, the lighting fixtures you use also matter. The warm-white bulbs will be a better option to brighten and warm up the rooms in the cold seasons. However, depending on the room in question, your kitchen may need a cool white bulb since it’s warmer due to the cooking appliances.

Strategically placed large mirrors will also help reflect more natural light across the room during the daytime. To get a credible opinion about your home’s lighting, check in with a professional electrician to give you all the details.

7.  Ditch the Heavy Curtains

Heavy curtains may look like the best option to retain heat, especially during the cold season, but they darken the rooms even more. Here are two options for you; you can either replace them with lighter thermal curtains or switch to blinds and remove the block altogether.

Both of these options work perfectly for insulation and privacy, but the only distinct feature about the blinds is that they will also brighten your room, and the light coming in can be controlled as desired. So, what’s your option?

8.  Add a New Splash of Paint

Your home will undoubtedly need newness to its walls, especially if they have not been painted for many years now. Light colors always have a way of making the room appear bigger and brighter. White paint is neutral and works perfectly even for the ceiling as it ensures light is reflected evenly across the room.

Though seasons are temporary, your home should always be a safe and comfortable space that you can return to no matter the weather outside. If you do the necessary updates, you will never notice the difference between bright and dull seasons.

About the Author

Jenn Walker is a freelance writer, blogger, dog-enthusiast, and avid beachgoer operating out of Southern New Jersey.