How To Get More Light Into Your New 3-Bed London Home
So, you’ve bought your new 3-bed London home!
Congratulations!
It needs some renovating and updating…
One aspect that is often overlooked is how to get more light into your new 3-bed home.
What are some steps that you can take to help achieve this?
Create An Open Floorplan
With planning permission, opening up the floor-plan (and the interior walls!) can make a massive difference to the amount of light that is let into the home…
A light 3-bed home can lighten your mood and can make it feel warmer and far more homely.
Creating a large open plan kitchen that gets light from multiple angles is one of the best decisions that you can make, as it can become a focal point of the home.
“If you are looking to add a basement to your 3-bed property, look into the possibility of building a basement under the garden instead of a basement under the current home.”
Paint
Doing something as simple as painting the walls white can make an enormous difference in terms of brightening rooms and can have a positive impact on the entire house.
Entrances and hallways can often be dark and unappealing and can be changed within a few hours!
The fact that sellers keep their 3-bed houses so dark and dreary really amazes me, as they’re not treating their home like a ‘product’ that buyers are looking to possibly buy, but that’s another story!
Windows
Is it possible to replace the windows entirely and make them larger?
Is it possible to lower the bottom of the windows to ensure that you have a better view regardless of whether you are standing or sitting?
If not, is it possible to replace the windows themselves and make them more functional in terms of letting in light?
Skylights
Putting in new skylights, whether it is in the kitchen or in the stairwell can make a massive difference to the amount of light the home let in!
Another step to take if you are in a 3-bed townhouse or a more narrow 3-bed house, is to direct the skylight light down the centre of the building - down the middle of the staircase.
Garden Basement Extension
If you are looking to add a basement to your 3-bed property, look into the possibility of building a basement under the garden instead of a basement under the current home.
In terms of having usable space, garden basements can be pretty effective and they can also be superb in terms of having lightwells that let in a lot of natural light.
They also typically cost a lot less in terms of digging and far less potential for structural damage.
With a garden basement, you can literally have a lightwell above every single room (apart from the cinema, which for quite some time has been referred to as a ‘media room’…!) which will flood it with light and make it seem like a proper extension of the house.
Rear Extension
Over the last 2-3 years, it has become easier to carry out rear extensions on homes in England, under permitted development.
You can currently (at the time of writing!) extend up to six metres out for the majority of property types and eight metres put for detached homes, up to a maximum of four metres high.
Could you add a rear extension to your home?
Could you install floor to ceiling windows surrounding the structure, or have it as a completely glass made structure?
Which of these ideas sounds appealing to you?