What is the best way to get the most natural light in a room?

[Guest]

I'm currently renovating my kitchen and dining room and love the look of natural light. What is the best way to make use of natural light without being overwhelming?

[Dreadnaught]

Welcome @katy.

 

Having light coming from more than one direction is important in my opinion. In my build, I intend to have at least two directions for natural light to enter each of the main rooms.

 

A second point is that roof lights are more effective than windows at bringing in natural light (I intend to have lots), but of course that's rather dependent on the shape of your building (mine is a flat-roofed bungalow).

[jack]

Welcome to BuildHub.

I'm not sure what you mean by "overwhelming". Do you mean too bright? We have a 5.5m long, 2.2m high sliding door on the south side of our kitchen, several large windows to the east, and a small window to the north, but it's rare I feel we have too much light coming in (shade from a tree to the south east, and external blinds on the eastern windows help).

 

Can you be more specific about what you're doing and what you hope to achieve? Photos or plans are often helpful.

[Ferdinand]

Skylights of roof windows bring in about 4-6 times as much light as the same area of window.

 

May effect what you put where.

 

Glazing bars can also have a significant effect ... do the calculations.

 

If you end up needing to enhance it then things light pale surfaces near windows or mirrors in the reveals (or facing a window) can help a great deal.

 

Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

12 minutes ago, katy said:

I'm currently renovating my kitchen and dining room and love the look of natural light. What is the best way to make use of natural light without being overwhelming?

 

I do not think there is a ‘best way’.

 

You need to spend time finding out what you want / like, and develop the background to determine what that is and how to do it. Or communicate your requirements to a designer when you know what they are, and pay the appropriate.

 

Comment here can help, but also eg studying other houses, staying in places eg Landmark Trust or AirBNB, Open House Weekend in London on 22-23 September etc can help.

https://openhouselondon.org.uk/

 

Ferdinand

 

[AliG]

Our kitchen has windows on three sides, but none of them allow light directly on the kitchen worktops and I wish I actually had another window that directed light there. We actually still end up with the lights on a lot of the time.

 

As said, roof windows allow a fantastic amount of light and i would incorporate them if possible.

 

I don't think that you can have too much light, unless it is so much it causes overheating. However, I would focus the natural light on places where you spend the most time. We probably spend 50x more time in the kitchen than the dining room, and I don't really notice how much natural light there is there. It may be that you want a small cosy room (a snug) where you wouldn't have large windows, but in a kitchen the more the better (assuming that you have enough wall space)

 

 

[jack]

There are some useful replies, so we'll leave it up, but this thread was started to allow posting of a spam response (which was deleted before it was posted due to an eagle-eyed mod).

[ToughButterCup]

I am overwhelmed by your question. Help us all would you please. 

 

Some more context would help: which way do the windows face, how many are there? What does overwhelmed by light mean?

[jack]

29 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

I am overwhelmed by your question. Help us all would you please. 

 

Some more context would help: which way do the windows face, how many are there? What does overwhelmed by light mean?

 

Ignore the thread @recoveringacademic, it was started by a spammer - see my post above yours.

[Declan52]

50 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

I am overwhelmed by your question. Help us all would you please. 

 

Some more context would help: which way do the windows face, how many are there? What does overwhelmed by light mean?

Think it Mr Manfred man nailed it 

Blinded by the light

Revved up like deuce

Another runner in the night

[Carrerahill]

3 hours ago, katy said:

I'm currently renovating my kitchen and dining room and love the look of natural light. What is the best way to make use of natural light without being overwhelming?

It really depends on many many factors, the simplest obviously is to have the window of the room facing the sun - generally we say South facing however it depends on the use of the room.

 

Often a well designed building will make good use of natural daylight (where requested extensive 3DS Max (or similar) daylight modelling is carried out) for the particular room in question, hotels may have breakfast room facing East and evening dining areas West.

 

The next thing is overhangs, a high summer sun may be partially blocked by deep roof overhangs but a low winter sun may penetrate well - the size of the opening and the placement within the wall is important to counteract a deep overhang on a sun facing wall. 

 

So it's a how long is a piece of string sort of a question. Your possibly better to suggest your requirements and or parameters and then it can be answered from there.

 

Your room is already built, but are you looking to add remove change doors, windows, skylights etc. can you improve natural daylight by adding glazed doors? 

 

Light finishes on surfaces help to reflect light, natural or artificial. Also bear in mind that a domestic kitchen shouldn't really need to think too much about glare as you are not likely to be sitting working at a PC or watching TV or spending long periods of time sat in one place with the sun bothering you so my thinking is include loads of natural daylight, get it all in and then design in appropriate shutters, blinds, curtains etc. to suit.  

[jack]

Thread locked as original question was posted by a spammer. We'll leave it here, as there are some useful replies.