A bright room that feels harsh doesn't need to be darker.

It needs filtered light, calmer surfaces, and one place for the eye to rest. The free Light Audit helps you read your own living room and tells you the first thing to change, before you touch curtains, paint, or furniture.

Free printable checklist. One day of noticing. A clear first step.

See where your light needs softening

Read the light before you spend anything

Most people fix a harsh room in the wrong order — new curtains, a coat of paint, a different sofa — and it still feels exposed. The problem usually isn't the amount of light. It's what the light is doing when it arrives, and which surfaces are throwing it back.

The Light Audit is a printable checklist you fill in by spending one day watching your own living room — morning, midday, and afternoon. It's not a shopping list. It's a way to see what's already happening, so your next decision is the right one.

Four things the checklist helps you see

• Where the light comes from — window direction, when the sun enters, whether it lands on the floor or the walls

• When the room feels wrong — the time of day it turns harsh, and whether it reads as glaring, flat, cold, or exposed

• What the surfaces are doing — which floors, walls, and reflective pieces are bouncing light back into the room

• What's already working — the one corner or hour that feels calm, and why

Spend one full day with it. The light changes from morning to afternoon, and so does the room.

It doesn't just ask, it reads your answers back

The last page turns your answers into a first move. A few examples of what it tells you:

• If your light comes from the south or west, afternoon glare is structural — repainting won't fix it, so you start with the window.

• If your floor is stone, tile, or glossy wood, the light bounces up from below — a matte, natural-fibre rug in the brightest path is the direct fix.

• If every surface is pale and matte, the room isn't harsh — it's flat, and it needs one warmer, darker material to give the light something to land on.

• If no time of day feels calm, the lighting is too even — the answer is to make it uneven, not to block it.

You finish knowing not just what's wrong, but what to change first.

If your living room feels bright but never quite calm

This is for anyone living with strong southern light — a sunny apartment, a house near the coast, a room that photographs beautifully but feels sharp to sit in. You don't need to be renovating. You just need to understand your light before you make the next decision about it.