Free Decorating Ideas for Dark Rooms

Do your rooms feel dark, dingy and lifeless? Find useful free decorating ideas to bring light back into your life and your home. Must-have interior design tips...

Maybe you don't have any, or enough, windows? Your windows are too small? ...or maybe your room looks out onto a tiny, dark backyard? ...or faces north, without much sunlight?

Whatever your lighting problems, a dark room can feel dingy, dank, unfriendly, cold, and sometimes isn't a place you want to spend too much time...

Dark rooms needn't give you all these problems though... With a little thought and planning (and with the help of these free decorating ideas for dark rooms, of course)...

...you can easily make-over your dark rooms into lighter and brighter, or warm and cosy spaces, where you just long to come home to...

Solutions for dark rooms can be simple solutions you can add in a day, or a weekend, or they can be more long-term changes, that might even need structural alterations...

• Firstly, consider the layout of your home.
  • Which activities do you really need to, or long to, do in a bright, sunlit room?
  • And could you change the layout of your home to take advantage of a sunny window for reading, or art and craft activities...

    ...for example, while a dining or TV area, used mostly at night, could be in one of the darker areas of your home.












• Think about altering the structure of your home to bring more light into your rooms.

  Can you add:

  • larger windows?
  • skylights?
  • tubular rooflights?
  • extra windows?
  • remove walls?
  • swap solid walls for walls made of glass bricks, or glass partitions - frosted or patterned glass can give you privacy between the different areas, whilst still allowing light to enter the room.









• Lighting can be set behind semi-opaque panels to give the effect of windows in windowless rooms
• In our previous home, we removed a section of the stud wall and replaced with 3 glass bricks in the bathroom, which had no window.

  This allowed light from the landing window to enter the bathroom, but was positioned high enough for complete privacy.

• In this house, we have a glass panel above the door to lighten and brighten our windowless bathroom.
• Consider using glass panels in internal doors to allow light to spread through your home.

  This is a great idea, again used in our own home to help illuminate our small rooms (with tiny windows) and especially the internal hallway/understair area where I have my work area.

• Lighting, of course, will be your main consideration. Try to move away from the idea of a single pendant light in all rooms...

  Chandeliers with 5 or more bulbs will cast more light.

• Spotlights are another idea, but can tend to leave 'spots' of light, whilst the rest of the room gets left in darkness.
• Get around dark corners in your home by a careful survey of dark areas you want to get rid of. Add well-positioned lighting to illuminate these dark spots.

  These might be:

  • floor lamps
  • table lamps
  • wall lamps
  • spotlights
  • floorlighting (especially good for stairs, or try in the bottom of bathpanels)
  • picture lights
  • round-mirror lights
  • under-cabinet lighting
  • display cabinet lighting









• Don't be afraid of adding more lights until you find the level of lighting that's right for you and your room.

  More free decorating ideas about home interior lighting

• Consider your window treatments in dark rooms. Allow every available ounce of light into your home. Don't clutter up your windows with dark or fussy curtains.
• Extend curtain rails beyond the edges of your windows, so you can pull curtains right back, to let the light in.

  This will make your windows appear larger too. Blinds can be fitted higher to keep windows free.

  More free decorating ideas for curtains and blinds in this window treatments guide










• Consider the outside too - clear plants and trees which might block the light.
• Painting walls and fences in white, or pale colors, will also reflect light back into your toom, as will pale paving slabs or gravel underneath the windows.
• When choosing furniture or fixtures for your room, think glossy and think pale.

  Shiny surfaces (even dark ones, to some extent) will reflect any available light around the room.

• Keep flooring shiny and pale too.
• Mirrors are a must - a large mirror opposite a window, or anywhere in a dark room, will really enhance and reflect all the available light.
• Pale colors are ideal to use on walls and in furnishings - one of the most useful free interior design ideas for dark and poorly lit rooms.

  Choose:

  • whites
  • creams
  • pastel shades of:
    • creams
    • lemons
    • blues
    • greens
    • pinks
    • etc...
• Keep the whole effect warm and bright, rather than cool and chill, by including welcoming tones and accents of cheerful yellow (even a pale lemon will help) to brighten up your room.
• Accents of orange, russets or plums can also cozy up a cold or dark-feeling space.
• One of the best free decorating ideas for dark rooms used primarily in the evening is to go with the flow and make the most of dark tones - keep it warm though!

  Create a luxurious and cozy retreat with tones of orange, red and purples.

• Choose elegant and fabulous furnishings and fabrics to go with the air of luxury in there. Add to the atmosphere with romantic accent lighting and candlelight.

I hope that some of these free interior design ideas can help you to find solutions that really work for your dark and dingy rooms.

Read about Jilly's dark flat problems...

Karen's dark living room...

Donna's dark, narrow lounge

A reader wants help with creating a light and feminine room

Still stuck? Need more free decorating ideas to make your room feel lighter and brighter?

Ask a question and solve your own dark room problems, here...

More ideas for decorating with color

More ideas for decorating for small spaces and low ceilings

...and even more ideas for decorating small spaces...

More free decorating ideas about home interior lighting and window treatments

More inexpensive decorating ideas for interior design on a budget

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