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We're at the 2018 Idea House for This Old House, which is located in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and we're just blocks away from the ocean.

This Old House approached us because they were very interested in producing a craftsman bungalow for their Idea House. These houses were sort of modeled after beach houses.

This house is obviously new construction, but the idea is that you want that new construction to look like it's always been here.

We're sitting now in the living room space.

The living room is the heart of the home. It's a gathering space. You can kind of see it from everywhere within the home, and it's a real focal point to the house. It was important for us to bring a lot of daylight into the space.

The reason we chose to add skylights is because it adds a lot of light and it doesn't necessarily take up wall space, and then the positioning of the skylight with the slope of the roof kind of brings light in from a different angle.

We incorporated skylights both in the main living area and we did so in the screen porch.

We're seeing this trend towards these three-season rooms, so people are taking that porch that used to be maybe just a covered porch or a screen porch and enclosing it in glass so that they can use it for more of the seasons.

It's facing south, so the southern exposure, in the winter, will allow a lot of natural sunlight in and will warm that space up.

Even on a rainy day like today, I think you'll notice a drastic difference between a room that does have skylights and one that would have a solid ceiling surface because we are still getting this great, kind of natural diffused light.

They've got automatic sensors, so when it senses rain, those skylights will close, and that peace of mind is, you know, a great feature for a skylight.

Natural light really gives us a sense of the time of day. It helps with our rhythm of living.

You know, nobody wants to be in a dark basement room without any sense of what's going on outside-- is it sunny or is it raining-- so bringing in natural light is just a way of connecting us to the outdoors.

The reason we like the skylights is because you can vent them, you can shade them, or you could leave them open for the complete solar axis.

They really play an integral role in the design of this house.

[upbeat music]