The Game-changing Power Of Skylights: A Quick Guest Cottage Update

Today, we’re talking skylights, why they’re necessary for this project, and all the places we’ve put them so far (and where we else we might add them…) in the guest cottage. This house is an extension of our business, our version of an ‘office’ where we create content. Sure, the kids will have a room for their pop-a-shot and we’ll have a kitchenette for any future short or long-term guest, but because we shoot 10-20 campaigns a month we need to have fresh and exciting places to do so, or all of us would get so bored. So we are making sure that every single room in this guest cottage that we are restoring has interesting colors, textures and will pop on camera. I know that this isn’t everyones typical goal when remodeling, but while a food blogger would need to have a great kitchen to shoot in, a home blogger needs beautiful rooms to do our job well. Kaitlin Green, our beloved photographer, and Marlee, who shoots all our social video content, are both FANTASTIC at their jobs. But good, natural light makes all of our jobs so much easier, faster and more inspiring. My living room has famously bad, flat light until 4pm (because we put in a big covered porch). It gets enough light for us to make it work, but it’s always really hard to shoot and Kaitlin often has to bring in lights.

Windows of course help (and we are making some of our windows bigger in this house) but they might not always be the solution. Where this house is positioned on the property there are two rooms in the back that sit close to a neighbor’s property line with not only an unsightly chain link fence right outside the window, but a massive tall hedge of trees that blocked all natural light coming in through the window. So adding skylights was the only solution to adding more natural light to some of these rooms. And while a lot of people are scared of skylights, I know how worth it they are to add (and Velux skylights are so simple, solar powered and high quality – I’ve never had one issue with any of ours – in this house, the mountain house or the first Portland project). So here is where we put them…

The Game Room

This room is big and dark and while I love a cozy, moody room (a la speakeasy) we needed more natural light in here. So I used this as an opportunity to put in Velux’s biggest square skylights, almost 4’x4′ with shades, of course (all of Velux skylights now come with room darkening shades installed). I actually ordered a darker shade that matches the wood that will be on the ceiling so that if we want to have a cozy vibe in there at night it won’t be a bright white shade.

This is how dark it was before, on the left. Kaitlin is able to open up her camera aperture and make it look much brighter than it actually used to be, in the name of you being able to see what it looked like at all. But trust me – it was DARK. And now it’s so bright and feels heavenly. We put the skylights higher up on the slanted ceiling to cast the most amount of light and will clad the interior of the light well and the ceiling in our new, reclaimed wood.

We knew we wanted to take out that original window on the left (we are restoring it and moving it to the bathroom) because the view out of this the window was to a chain link fence covered in tall trees. But we couldn’t have a room with no natural light so adding skylights was the easy choice. The second I walked in after they were installed, I squealed, not believing yet again how much natural light can transform a room.

I love the big square look – they feel like big windows on the ceiling (well, because they are) but I love that you now get the really pretty, light-filled tree view when you look up, instead of a shaded chainlink fence. Even on a cloudy day (perhaps especially on a cloudy day) the soft natural light is just so pretty in here now.

Again, this before shot doesn’t look that dark because Kaitlin opened up her aperture so you could actually see what was going on, but this room was SO DARK. I should dig through my iPhone shots and show you. It was scary. If you think that before and after slider is satisfying, just trust me that in person it’s 100x more compelling.

For those of you who are trying to convince me to put back in a window, I just might. I have been so personally busy this summer with more house guests than I thought possible, so I haven’t had a second to shop for one or design a window but I’m hoping to get one locked down before they do the siding. I just need to make sure that a window wouldn’t effect the wiring that has already gone in.

The Bathroom

Ok, did this bathroom need two massive skylights? Nah. That east facing window gives great light. But with the high ceilings I knew that they would make this bathroom even more epic. Now move the slider…

See? I was right! Putting in skylights during a remodel is actually pretty easy. Sure the guys had to reframe to make sure the ceiling was sound and strong because ours wasn’t, then they had to frame it out, cut the hole in the roof, add the flashing, etc. It’s not that it’s not a thing, but if you are in the middle of remodeling, now’s the time to do it.

These two are 30″ x 50″ and a light fixture will hang down in between them. I love that they really draw your eyes to this great ceiling, which will look even better once we get the reclaimed wood installed.

Of course the toilet will be inside the water closet that has it’s own room, so then I was like ‘should I put a skylight on the roof of the out house so it gets the natural light from the skylights in the actual roof?’ but I was joking (for the most part).

We boarded up that south facing window for the same reason as the one in the game room, and also because the shower is going to go over on that wall and so doing so gave us more space to play with.

I’m am debating putting a skylight inside the shower, where I’m standing in that shot. I LOVE a skylight in a shower and since we are going to have a stained glass transom as part of the shower entrance it could be so pretty to highlight the stained glass pattern. The ceiling in the shower will be drywall, so barring the placement of the fan I think maybe we could put it in later. I haven’t had the brain space to think it through totally, but it’s something that is swirling around in this head of mine.

Upstairs

Now I’m getting greedy….. but, Gretchen had a pretty solid idea the other day to get more natural light up in this landing we could put one or two big skylights on that slanted wall. For this house I didn’t want any skylights that you could see from the street that would compromise its cottage-y charm, but all of these are on the back side of the property that no one can even see. So this could be an opportunity to flood more light into this area, and the stairs which are pretty dark.

Kaitlin and I did a natural light audit the other day where I posed around the house and she took photos to assess where the best natural light was. It’s not bad, facing this way, but if you turn and see where the old bathroom stalls were, it’s pretty dead light, so a skylight on the slanted ceiling across it might help.

The stairwell is also super dark and while we are adding a sconce, it might also be nice to get some natural light in there. Especially since I want to paint a fun pattern on the stairs. A window in here could really help highlight that.

From the exterior you might see a tiny lip of a skylight but otherwise where they are on the house are completely hidden (which I like since it’s a vintage house).

Up Next

I swear we are SO CLOSE to finalizing the design plan for the bathroom. After our last round of family house guests leave on Sunday, I’m full steam ahead on this project (as well as the 5 sponsored design makeovers that need to be done by September). They are all such fun creative projects, but the deadlines are making this house take a bit of a back burner, which is all good. Still hoping to be working upstairs by September. Wish us luck

*Photos by Kaitlin Green