Borrowed Light Hall Window - Ideas Please

lucysettle

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone out there has any advice or thoughts on internal 'borrowed light' windows. We have one upstairs in our house that runs the length of one of the bedrooms and provides natural light for the hallway. Everything in our house is horrible seventies decor which we're trying to remove and put the cottage back to its original state to match its age - 250 years old.

On the negative side of things, the window is very seventies with horrible mottled glass and the guest bedroom has the hallway light streaming in at night, but on the flip side it does make the hallway nice and light during the day.

So does anyone have any views on the pros and cons of these internal 'borrowed light' windows? Do the pros outweigh the cons? (And there are a lot of cons!) And can anyone suggest any creative way of keeping it but making it look better?

I can imagine you can do interesting things with panes of glass and easily make it look more modern, which would be great for a modern apartment, but what could you do for a 250 year old cottage?

If anyone can offer any creative ideas, then I'd be greatly appreciateive... otherwise the plasterboard is coming out!!!

Thanks
Lucy

ormus

modern stained glass, or painted glass?

olias

sun tube/sky tube etc

Then block up the internal window.

Olias

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I second the stained glass approach. Makes it more cottagey, rather than Southwest London Victorian semi.

They had them in DD's primary school. After paying for one to be taken out, they realised that it was almost pitch black in that end of the school, so cancelled the plans for the rest of the building.

Looby_Lou

What about a glass that has a pattern etched into it? I want to change ours to something similar to these

http://www.pilkington.com/pilkington2004/both/images/productdirectory/flash/orielselector.html

We find having a lower wattage of bulb on the landing helps with making less light at night in the bedrooms, but we also put the beds so that they don't face the doors which helps. When our kids are older we will probably just go for a night light plugged into the landing socket.

I would suggest putting some cardboard over the windows and seeing what a difference the light makes - it might help you decide what you want to do!

muskoka

I also think stained glass could be the way to go