Adding Natural Light to a Closet

When we bought our home, my husband and I noticed the walk-through master closet had no windows or skylights to provide natural light. This made it necessary to always turn on the lights in this dark area, even in the middle of the day. The owner’s original plan for the closet was to add two skylights, but somewhere along the way they unfortunately changed their minds.  We could add the skylights ourselves, but as you can imagine that would be costly and is not in the budget right now.

Now I have a habit (thanks to my job) of being constantly on the lookout for furniture on the side of the road. One day I came across a desk that was neither antique nor vintage but it did have this beautiful leaded glass in the doors. I could not let them be destroyed by the garbage truck so I pulled over and easily removed them.  Here is a photo of them on my dad’s workbench.

My dad is 86 years old and has always been very talented in so many ways, one being carpentry. I had an idea and I knew he could execute it.  Why not put a window on the interior wall between the toilet room (which has tons of natural light) and the master closet. I knew it wouldn’t solve all the lighting problems, but since it only cost $56 for materials, and would definitely help at least some, we proceeded with the plan.  

Dad built a frame around the glass so it could be mounted in the wall (see below).

Then he cut a hole in the party wall between the toilet and closet areas. The only snag was he had to move the vent pipe for the toilet as it was right where he wanted the window (no big deal). He used some corner PVC to go round the window frame. Then he cut the stud and used it to attach the window in the wall.

Now we liked the look, but I thought it might help to add some mirror inside the window frame to help reflect light. I happened to have some mirror left over from another project, so my dad cut some pieces to fit the frame and attached them with double sided tape. It really adds a beautiful reflective effect to the leaded glass, makes the glass appear larger than it is and adds additional light to the closet.

Here is a before and after of the closet showing the additional natural light coming through the window with the mirrors. We mounted the window high enough so you can’t view the toilet at all. (That would be inappropriate…lol).

The window adds architecture and interest to the toilet area while providing some light for the closet.

So next time you see something left to the trash, that may have potential value, consider picking it up and finding a way to repurpose it. And if you have a dark area in your home, you may be able to find a creative, beautiful and inexpensive way to brighten it.