if you want to bring a little more nature into your home, there are a few simple steps that will make a big difference. Perhaps you’ll add a large window, or perhaps you’ve thought of adding a few skylights and a couple of plants. That’s a great start! Now, this article will discuss how to create an environment in your home that’s filled with healthy, natural elements.
Adding Natural Lighting
The Benefits of Natural Light
There are so many health benefits to natural light that it’s difficult to list them all. Just a few:
- It boosts vitamin D if you catch the sunrays directly.
- It brightens your mood, and prevents seasonal depression.
- It improves your sleep.
- It reduces the health risks of fluorescent lighting, which can elevate stress, migraines and eye-strain.
How to Get More Light into Your Home
A Window
The first option many people think of is having large windows. This is the simplest solution when you have exterior walls in the room. The window will let in the rays of the sun, and the full spectrum of colour from natural light.
You can always add some form of light-blocker, such as glass that changes colour, or curtains or blinds, or even an awning for when the sun gets too strong. Of course, in cold areas, you’d want them to be double-glazed, which might increase the price.
What’s more, you can see so much more out of your window, bringing nature up close and personal.
Skylights
Skylights are another simple solution to increasing natural light in rooms. You have the traditional window skylights for rooms like attics, and then you can pick modern, cutting-edge tubular skylights. With these, you get all the benefits of natural light in a room, and brighten it up considerably, especially those dingy interior spaces.
Tubular Skylights
Tubular skylights are tubes that capture sunlight through a rooftop lens, and then reflect it down into the tube. That tube has a reflective surface, which projects the light right into the room or office. It consists of three parts:
- A rooftop collector
- A tube
- An interior diffuser
A tubular skylight uses the little dome on the roof to catch the rays of the sun. These rays are then transferred through a reflective tube to the diffuser. This in turn spreads—diffuses—the light into the room.
This can enable natural light to enter your hallway, bathrooms, kitchen, study, walk-in closets and even windowless laundry rooms. At the same time as providing light, it will help save electricity costs by reducing the need for switching on a light—at least during the day. You can have several installed in your roof, and light up your house in a natural way.
You do have dimmers in case you wish to dim the light at night for sleeping, but some of you might enjoy the reflected starlight as well.
Light-coloured Paint
A light-coloured paint does wonders to reflect any light coming into the room. If this is your aim, you should add light paint to every room in the house.
Add Mirrors
Mirrors amplify any light by reflecting it from place to place. Adding a few big ones around the home will allow you to increase the amount of light you notice inside, creating a warmer, welcoming feel.
Add Some Plants
Greenery provides a positive atmosphere through the following:
- Releasing oxygen into the air, and thereby increasing your ability to concentrate
- Reducing stress and being therapeutic
- Help you recover from illness
- Boost your productivity
- Improve the quality of indoor air
Not only that, but it also has an aesthetic appeal, and adds beauty and natural themes to your home. A plant in any room often draws attention, so don’t stint on size or quantity. Having a vast array of plants at varying heights and positions around a room can actually look entrancing.
A Touch of Stonework Does Magic
If you add stonework, you can enhance the natural colours in the room. You may select subtle pinks, greys, blues and browns to create nature’s palate—right over your fireplace, for instance.
Try it on one wall of a room as a feature-piece. Whether you use slate or rounded stone will depend both on personal choice. It takes your room to another level, and enables your visitors to feel like they are going for a walk in the forest, especially if you combine it with a water feature.
Water Features
Having a small fountain operating in the corner of your room has a remarkably soothing effect, and can also cool any warm air entering from outside. It also has a beautifying effect, so is an excellent décor option.
Conclusion
Bringing nature into your home can take a little bit of time, planning and effort, but it’s worth all the energy it takes to create. Why not go and buy a plant today?
