In 2020, VELUX held the Brighten Up Any Room design giveaway, partnering with designer and style expert Emily Henderson to transform a space with natural light and thoughtful design.
After some unforeseen delays (ahem, pandemic), the reveal from the 2020 giveaway is finally ready.
“Basically, our team comes in and does a surprise makeover for a family who could use some brightening up, both physically with skylights and with an emotional boost,” Emily said.
And the 2020 winner definitely needed that boost!
The giveaway winners
Meet Dina Price, a working mom of three living in Seattle, looking to redesign the bedroom her children share.
As soon as she saw Dina’s submission, Emily’s reaction was immediate: “This is our family.”
In February 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dina was eight months pregnant with two kids at home. While playing with her son, Dina felt a pop and a gush, and knew something was wrong.
“Dina’s story was pretty compelling,” Emily said. “She went into labor at home, and her older son, who was five, had to call 911. It was a traumatic situation for everybody, and as a mom I can relate to that.”
After an emergency C-section, lots of blood loss and a 17-day stay in the NICU for baby Ada, Dina and her youngest daughter could finally go home. As they recovered, Dina and her husband tried to find a way to make the attic room usable for the three children, as both a sleep and a play space. But with all the tumult that 2020 brought, design fell by the wayside.
Before the makeover, the room was dark and filled with beds, leaving little room for activities and play.
“It had potential and a decent amount of space, but it wasn’t designed,” Emily said.
So, she immediately got to work for her three newest clients: Dina’s children, Clark, Holly and Ada.
Adding skylights opened up the bedroom’s low, sloped ceiling
The bedroom’s sloped ceilings made VELUX No Leak Solar Powered Fresh Air Skylights with shades a natural fit to help the room feel larger. Dina, working with a VELUX-certified installer, selected two skylight sizes to open up the north side of the ceiling: a 4-by-4-foot and a 2-by-4-foot skylight. Both skylights have white, room-darkening shades that are remote-controlled and built-in rain sensors that trigger the skylights to close at the first sign of rain.
“The skylights instantly opened up the room, not only with the amount of light they brought in, which was a ton, but there’s just this sense of, ‘the sky is right there,’” Emily said. “Skylights in a bedroom work. And with that breeze, you feel like you’re in a treehouse.”
Inspired by this whimsical bedroom makeover?
Connect with a VELUX design consultant to learn about the magic of natural light from skylights.
Putting the ‘fun’ in functional
With three kids sharing one room, Emily and her team had to get creative to design a fun and functional space for three children to use daily and as they grow.
With a significantly brighter space, the team turned to selecting a color scheme and theme to tie the room together. The mural-like wallpaper was the jumping-off point for design inspiration. It draws on the room’s newfound connection to the treetops, introduces a playful color palette and draws the eye upward to make the room seem larger.
“We really wanted to utilize the height in this space,” Emily said. “Even though it’s low, we wanted to do things at different levels.”
Besides floor space for playing, the room has imaginative features, such as a cozy, canopied reading nook and under-bed storage for the kids’ clothes and toys.
And when it’s time for quiet play or mid-afternoon naps, the skylight shades can be closed with the click of a remote.
A place to play and grow
When Dina first spoke with Emily about her vision for the room, she described it as “a cloud at the end of the rainbow.”
So, did the room live up to her expectations?
“My kids are beyond thrilled with the space,” Dina said. “Thank you for treating our tiny home with respect and pulling out of it something I wouldn’t even have dreamed of. We feel incredibly blessed and spoiled.”
And months later, her kids still love their new bedroom.
“It was such a fun experience. The room is amazing, and the kids are still so happy. Thank you for brightening our home and infusing joy into my family.”
