Get the best lighting conditions in your home

Be environmentally friendly by making the most of natural light in your home and reduce electricity use during the day.

Get a positive energy boost as you start your day by opening the curtains wide and letting the morning sun beam into your home. It makes sense to situate the kitchen and living room where they get the maximum amount of daylight. But, unless you've designed the house yourself, that's not always possible. Even so, there are plenty of tricks to help you make a dark home (or an overly bright one) more appealing.

• A dark and windowless hallway can create a gloomy first impression. Save such a hallway from desolation by illuminating it evenly, perhaps with ceiling pot lights along the length of the hall.
• If natural sunlight only penetrates the part of the room that is close to a window, you can capture that elusive light with a mirror and reflect it wherever you wish.
• Light-coloured or well-illuminated walls give a room an expansive feeling because they appear to reflect the sunlight. They can make a room appear larger and friendlier.
• Dark walls absorb light and therefore seem visually closer to the observer — an optical trick that you can use for long, stretched-out rooms.
• By designing windowsills and patios to look like a continuation of the interior furnishings, you can cleverly enlarge a room; the natural light will evoke the same colours inside as well as outside.

Although bright, sunlit rooms are generally pleasant, too much sunlight can be stifling in the heat of summer. Here are some ways to cool things down:

• Shutters deflect sunlight when placed on the outsides of your windows.
• Equally important is protection from glare. Anti-glare devices like louvred blinds and interior shutters go on the inside of windows, and usually have adjustable wooden or plastic slats that direct the light up or down or otherwise control it.
• To reduce glare, place the TV out of the path of direct sunlight and reflected light.
• Panel curtains mute the direct light from the outside yet still allow light to enter, keeping all areas of the room free from glare.
• Anti-glare screens reduce eyestrain when using a computer monitor on a sunny day.