DIY Monday: Adding light and depth to a room

When I married I moved into my new husband's condo, which presented me with some design challenges. The condo is on the top floor of the building. That meant high ceilings and skylights in most of the rooms without windows. One of my main problems, however, was a dining room with 20+ foot ceilings, no skylight, a 30 year old light fixture and three very, very red walls. That made for a dark room.

I wasn't afraid of red walls. In fact, I'd painted a focal wall in my old house a deep, dark red (that took 9 coats of paint to get the right red). Of course, that house had tons of windows in that room to lighten up the effect. This wall was tall and the space was dark. Luckily, I had a solution.

My solution was to gather all the old mirrors we had between the two of us and use them to reflect the light from a wall of windows on the opposite side of the room thereby creating light in that space and lengthening the space visually. We were lucky, between the two of us, we had a wall full of mirrors. Jason had inherited several from his grandparents and I've always been an advocate of using mirrors to open up spaces. Additionally, we got a bright new chandelier for the space that, when reflecting off the mirrors, makes the room shine with light.

Now, I call my design style "eclectic" - I have friends, however, who call it "cluttered." In short, I like a lot of stuff on the walls. I say that because if you have a dark room problem and like a cleaner look, you'll have to adapt this solution to your own design aesthetic by, for example, using fewer mirrors than I've used. And you don't have to use old mirrors - you can go to the thrift store, find some frames, paint them black, white, gold or silver (whichever you prefer) and have the local glass store fit them with mirrors for you.

However you decide to adapt the idea, it certainly will add depth and light to your room.