What's with the dark houses?

[SuperBride]

Many homes I visit have dark interiors!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even with nice outdoorsy spaces, the view is blocked with closed windows...
People say is to preserve the furniture or to economize the power (air conditioning).
BUT - when I get married I cannot imagine living in a DARK place... While the sun shines outside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's like you're entering the twilight zone!
The problem is my fiance is used to this and so is his family.
To me though today's light and air are more important than a couch that will be preserved for zillions of years.
Am I the only weirdo???
What to do????

[hummingbird521]

your not a weirdo unless i am. lol. i can't stand a dark house. i don't care if i pay more for utilities or not, my windows shades and curtains are pulled in the daytime. to me dark is gloomy and depressing. i much prefer bright and cheerful. in fact i just repainted my kitchen and everthing in it for this reason.

[kevinsbride2B]

OK so I guess this is a trend with us lol. I just finsihed painting our place in very warm and inviting colours. Kevin wanted all this red and dark colours and I put my foot down.
I need to live in a space with a lot of natural light, and happy colours. Neither of you are weirdo's unless I am too lol.

[katieandalex]

Yeah, I agree with you.I have my blinds open all the time and our doors are open all the time. I was freaking out for the longest time because we couldn't find the screen to put on our front door so there was no point in having our front door open and I wanted it open. The only blinds that stay closed all the time are the ones in our bedroom...other than that, we are very open! :)

Generally our decorating is pretty dark bold colors, but we have a mix between colors that brights up the house a lot. Our furniture in our living room is very dark and bold but the walls are a yellow/tan color that brightens the whole room....then tends to be the theme throughout the house.

[MindyUtah]

I love open spaces. I can't stand the dark houses either. I love all the windows I can get in.

[WebLady]

I like light and open areas in certain places and in certain times; but I like to be able to close things up if I want to.

I like to keep to myself and I don't want to see what the neighbors are doing outside and I don't want people walking by and seeing what I am doing. Plus I like to sleep late so I keep the windows and blinds all closed pretty much all the time.

As far as decor; I like white or light gray walls and our furnature is black and we have gray rugs. I am not a fan of alot of color.

[ikkin510]

We live on a main road that can be pretty busy, so I prefer to keep the blinds on that side of the house closed. I did try to decorate with as many light colors as possible. But when you get to other rooms, such as the kitchen, I have to have the blind open and light coming in!

[TrulyWed]

It totally depends on what colors your walls are. My house is completely white walls because we are renting and can't paint! We have TONS of windows and it just washes everything out with all the white paint. So I think it depends on the color of the paint. But I do like my windows open, well here I have no choice there are no blinds or anything on the windows, luckily they are all on the back of the house so no one sees me walking around naked! lol jk :bblol:

[orchidbride]

I'm a child of the sun myself and get very depressed when I have to be in dark places for any length of time. ( I once worked in a restaurant that was underground. In the winter when I left for work it was dark and by the time I left to go home in the evening it was dark, one of the worse periods of my life). Glad to be in the sun 24/7 these days.

When ever you can let natural sun light in its best. I grew up in a house where my mother opened all blinds in public places (Living room etc.) the moment she got up and the ones in private areas (bedrooms etc.) as soon as you were dressed. I've kept the same thing in my household.

I think it depends on your lifestye. This summer I stayed with a friend who doesn't spend a lot of time in her own home. I felt really foolish having to have lights on in the middle of the day so I opened all the blinds.

Miriam

[StarCoveter]

We used to rent a house that had dark wood paneling in the entire house... I hated it because it was so dark... in our house now we have a lot more light!

[miranda]

We keep our blinds shut quite a bit here because I don't like the idea of other people looking in our house. I open the curtains toward the back yard during the day, but at night they're closed too. FH and I like to walk around half-dressed in the evenings :) If I lived in a house without such close neighbors and neighbors who liked to look in at us, I'd love to leave the blinds open.

[grapefruit]

I like a mixture of both dim and light rooms. I like the dim atmosphere because it feels more secluded, more intimate. Like I want my library/office, living room, dining room to be dim-ish and kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms to be light-ish.

[mindi_lynn]

We have a little house already but we always have the blinds open so we decided to go ahead and paint using earth tones. The entrance is probably the darkest of all (the color is called dark cavern) however the door has windows and doesn't have any window treatments so there is constantly light shining in. I love to have the sun shining in! We did the darker colors because it made the rooms feel more homey and comfortable. I couldn't stand it if there wasn't any natural light coming in the house.

[Nikita706]

Wow, that's really weird. I've never heard of that in my life. Of course, we live in an area that doesn't get very warm in the summer, so the air conditioning isn't a problem, and I just don't know enough people who care enough about their couches that they would sacrifice daylight, lol. Everyone I talk to is always looking for ways to bring in natural light to lighten rooms. It's certainly more energy efficient to light a room with the sun than it is to use electricity.

Anyway, I agree with you, 'preserving a couch' is a horrible excuse for living in darkness, lol.