How to keep that airy feeling in your home during Autumn

If you’ve been enjoying the bright and airy feeling you get in your home during the summer months, today’s interior inspiration blog post may give you some ideas for keeping your house looking fresh and light during the darker days of autumn.

August is barely drawing to a close, but I’m already excited about autumn. That said, I love the summer for the simple reason that it’s SO much easier to take nice blog photos when it’s bright out! So, when the nights start drawing in, and the cloudy days cast a darker light throughout my home, I start to think about the things I can do to boost the brightness. Here are my ideas for keeping your rooms bright and airy over the coming autumn…

SCANDI TONES

Take inspiration from Scandinavian homes – after all, they have very little daylight during the winter, so would know how to decorate their rooms to optimise brightness. So, white walls are key to getting the natural daylight to bounce around the room and bring in brightness. Very pale greys and pastel blues can also help to achieve this effect. If you choose furniture in Scandi-style pale wool or whitewashed finishes, that’ll help you to get that airy feeling too.

Photo from North by Bronte Aurell

WINDOW TREATMENTS

I’m not just talking about the curtains – although, removing heavy curtains and replacing them with blinds that you can entirely roll-up out of the way certainly helps to bring in maximum light. But, in this case, I also mean the windows themselves. First of all, you can start by cleaning your windows so that as much light can get through them as possible.

And then, if you’re still struggling with dark rooms, it could just be the case that your windows aren’t big enough. If you’re renovating your home like I am, why not consider changing the windows to patio doors on the ground floor, and adding fixed rooflights to bedrooms. The more glass there is, the more light will come in – even a panel in the front door will make a difference.

CLEVER LIGHTING

So much can be achieved with lighting. Low-energy LED lights are now available in super-high lumens and you can use the bulbs in all of your existing light fittings and lamps. Use angled lamps to bounce light off a white ceiling as this will reflect the brightness down in to the room without overpowering your eyes. 

USE GLASS AND MIRRORS

Reflections, reflections, reflections. It’s SO important to have surfaces that reflect the light that does come into your home in the autumn. Hanging mirrors opposite a window provides the optical illusion of a second window in the room and doubles the amount of light in the space. Even if you can’t hang a mirror opposite, positioning mirrors and glass surfaces (like display cabinets or tables) will make a difference to the amount of light in the room as shiny surfaces will reflect the light rather than absorbing it. And illuminated are just the ultimate!

I hope these ideas will help you to have a bright home throughout September and onward. Thanks very much to Glow Glass for collaborating with me on this blog post and for providing plenty of design inspiration. Let me know your tips for keeping your home light and airy during the darker days of autumn in the comments below.

This article is a sponsored collaboration. The pink links in the content indicate a sponsored link or information source. The blog post reflects my own experience and the sponsor hasn’t had any control over my content 🙂