Why add skylights to an outdoor area? Well, whether it’s a covered patio, screened-in porch or a lanai, covered outdoor spaces tend to be dark, and with their extended roofs blocking sunlight from entering the windows or sliding glass doors, the rooms inside tend to be even darker.
Enter skylights. They bring natural light to outdoor living areas and allow some of the sunlight brightening the outdoor space to spill into the home’s interior. The rooms inside are essentially borrowing light from the outdoor space.
Porch and patio design guide
Learn more about borrowed light and the benefits of adding skylights to covered outdoor living areas.
1. This year’s HGTV® Dream Home 2023 has four VELUX® skylights with shades on its covered porch. They bring natural light to the porch and allow some sunlight that would otherwise be blocked by the porch roof to spill into the living room.
2. The HGTV® Smart Home 2021 has five skylights on its lanai, a secluded, semi-enclosed outdoor area on the back of the house.
3. Justina Blakeney used skylights to bring natural light to the lanai in her Southern California home. A covered porch blocks sunlight from the wall-to-wall sliding-glass door, but skylights brighten the inner room and allow Blakeney to fill it with plants.
4. This porch wraps around the back of the house and without the skylights, it would block most sunlight from the interior.
The dining space next to the porch borrows some natural light from the skylights outside.
5. Even though this patio has a multi-panel sliding glass door, the deep roof over the outside dining space still blocks most sunlight. Four skylights allow the living room to borrow some daylight.
6. This four-season porch is quite deep, but with three skylights the interior space is brightened with natural light.
7. The HGTV® Smart Home 2020 featured an expansive porch with six skylights that filled the outside space with natural light, some of which spilled into the living room inside.
Inside the home, the living room is a little brighter thanks to the skylights installed on the porch roof.
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