What is the plan for the second floor?

I think that with that deep covered patio on the north side, your family room really won't get much light.

I'm in central Texas also and have a somewhat analogous situation with my library and great room. Orientation wise, my library is on the north side where your great room is and my great room would be where your dining room and foyer are. The two rooms are almost completely open to each other with the spaces delineated by a change in flooring and wall paint colors. So there is nothing to block light traveling between the two rooms.

Outside my library, I have a covered wrap-around porch but, where your patio is 11 feet deep, my porch narrows to a mere 5 ft deep where the library room's windows are located. And, in the great room, directly across from the library, I have a wall of patio doors and windows to let in the south light. So, my library is situated to get light from both the north and the south very similarly to your great room.

Both rooms, library and great room, are absolutely lovely - never any harsh shadows and marvelous views of green trees whichever direction you turn. But I have found that even on sunny days, if I sit in the library to read, I often need to to turn on a lamp. And any house plants that I put in the library - even near the windows - start to grow rather spindly pretty quickly because they simply get enough light. Thus I'm constantly shifting houseplants around.

So, if your definition of bright and airy means enough natural light to read in the daytime without a lamp, or enough natural light to keep houseplants healthy, I think you're likely to be disappointed.

With your 11 foot deep patio roof, I think your great room will be rather darker than my library. The transom windows won't make much difference to how much light the great room gets if they too are shaded by the patio ceiling. To reach your great room, any light from the north will have had to bounce off the patio floors and ceilings so it will be really diffused.

Of course, there are some things you can do to increase the sense of light in the room... light colored walls, white ceilings that reflect as much light as possible, light/white tiles/carpeting, etc. Also, a white ceiling over the patio space and light flooring out there so that as much light as possible bounces into the great room.

Since the patio will be on the cooler, north side of your house, have you considered using a glass roof over it instead of a solid roof?...especially if you will have some trees in your back yard to further shade the patio. (Trust me, I would NEVER make a suggestion for a glass-roofed patio here in central Texas if the patio were on any other side of the house where it would get lots of direct sunlight. But on the north side, somewhat tucked into the space up against the house, I think a glass roof could work quite well. The direct sun would be blocked but the roof would expose your great room windows to the bright sky so that you would get wonderful "north light" in there.

When you mention skylights, if you're thinking about putting them into the great room ceilings, I would definitely advise against it. Every single person I know in central Texas who has skylights opening into their house has those skylights permanently covered over because if the sun hits them directly, they transmit so much heat as to become unbearable. If you're thinking about putting skylights into the patio ceiling, that would be another matter because 1) they would be mostly shaded from direct sunlight and 2) any heat they did transmit would not be trapped in a closed room but could dissipate naturally.

P.S. Since we live in the same area, if you'd like to come out and see my library/great room space to just for yourself, shoot me an email offline (click on the MyPage link beside my name to do it) and I'll be happy to have you over. I live about 30 minutes from downtown Austin, not too far east of the airport.

My dad used a couple of tube skylights in Central Texas and they work fine.

This is a fairly typical arrangement of the main area and so I think it will be OK. How high is the back porch? Any room to raise it?

WE are just finishing a house in NW Oklahoma with many windows on the north. All but three of the north facing ones are under porches. My living/kitchen (no direct windows in the kitchen) get plenty of natural light in the daytime. I was actually surprised at how much light there is. My porch over the living room windows in only 8 ft deep however. We did dark stained trim/cabinets but painted the walls anew gray--not too dark but gives a little color.

I also should say I have no shade to the north with the exception of the detached garage that gives late afternoon/evening shade.

Good luck on your build!

We lived in a custom built home that had central open space (not really a hall because the house was a very open plan) both downstairs and upstairs with a cupola above. There was one window that opened electronically. We loved that it brought in a great deal of light and we could open the window to vent out hot air in the summer. It gave us some of the advantages of skylights without the sun hitting directly.

We are using that idea in our current build although this house will be one story. The cupola will be over the kitchen/family area. The roof of the cupola will have a large overhang with windows on 4 sides, 2 being operable.

We're also doing 2 solotubes in the garage to bring in natural light. Did a lot of research on that and people seem to be very pleased with how much light it brings in. My husband had some experience in industrial settings where they were used and thought it would be good. Remember reading about people using in dark areas of their house and really brightening up space. All of these ideas are dependent, of course, on your upstairs layout.

Love the idea of a glass roof on the patio. Might not be fun to keep clean if there are trees nearby -

If this was my house, I'd work on the covering over the patio in order to get move light into the family room. Otherwise, as has been mentioned, the family room is going to appear rather dark. The windows in the breakfast and kitchen should suffice for those spaces.

North light tends to be diffused and rather constant throughout the day and the sun's movement. This is the reason that artist's prefer north light in their studios--it's never direct and never has the great changing intensity of other orientations.

There's lots you could do for the patio covering, ranging from no covering at all, to wooden pergola, to translucent materials. The worst thing would be to make the covering a "normal" roof assembly! Without knowing the architectural character of your house, it's not possible to suggest an approach that would be most appropriate.

Good luck on your project.

We have 2 solatubes in our dining room, and the light they provide is fantastic.

They can be used with a second floor if there is a closet above.

Thanks for the comments so far. There does not appear to be a consensus, but several folks have recommended Solatubes. I guess I could put in two 14" Solatubes in the Family room by putting them in the centers of two coffers at one-third and two-thirds of the way along the length of the room.

But would these point sources of skylight be too bright, like really bright light fixtures that make you want to wear a baseball cap to shield your eyes from the glare? I guess we could build the house as-is, and add the Solatubes later if we decide we want more light.

Have also thought about long linear skylights at the boundaries of the kitchen/family rooms, dining/family rooms, and entry/family rooms.

In response to a few questions, the porch roof will be about 15' high. I like the suggestion about making the patio and underside of porch roof light colors. That may help some. Per requests, I have also attached sketch for second floor, which contains a guest bedroom, study, exercise room, and two baths.

Any more opinions welcome. Thanks.

We were concerned about our porch blocking too much light so we went with translucent roofing and it seems to do what we wanted it to. However it does have a casual look. If you wanted your porch to look very finished, skylights or a glass roof might be a better choice. But letting light through the porch roof would likely solve your problem without creating new ones.

Anyhow, here is a view of our partially completed screen porch:

Solatubes have daylight-dimming options, so look into that. But my delightful experience with Solatubes is that they are like having a ceiling light, it's just light, not glaring-so-you-want-a-cap.

Since there is nothing above the porch roof, you could make it "peaked", that would let in more light.

Here is a link that might be useful: You can dim Solatube light

I have a solatube at the top of my stairway to my 2nd flood. It is amazing how much light they bring in. During the day, I've had people try to figure out how to turn it off, thinking it was a ceiling fixture on a switch.

I've never stood there and just stared into it, but I've never noticed that it was so bright I wish I could dim it.

I love it and wish I'd put in one more in a dark hallway on the 2nd floor

To me, from the inside, solatubes look rather like can lights with a diffuser covering the bulb. Not exactly a look that I would want with a coffered ceiling.

Maybe instead you could put some solatubes in your patio roof to bring more light under the patio where it would be reflected into your great room through the windows.

bevangel, I agree. Not thrilled with the idea of Solatubes in my coffers. I am starting to think that the easiest and most effective solution is to simply delete the patio roof.

We plan on having a small pool adjacent the patio which is not shown in the sketch. On the other side of the pool we can put in an outdoor kitchen with a covered patio. So we can still have patio functionality without a long roof adjacent the house that will block the light.

I'm in central Texas too and my great room faces northeast, but the east part is blocked off by the breakfast room so no light from there. We have a 10 ft deep porch. We have the foyer and dining room all open on the other side. We have plenty of natural light IMO as a lot comes from the foyer and dining side which on my house have a 10 ft deep front porch in front of them too. I don't feel like I lack light in the house at all and it is nice to never have a glare on the TV or sun in our eyes while in the great room.The outside wall of the great room has frenchdoors on each side of a fireplace so also not a wall of windows. Interior my ceilings are at 9th and exterior looks similar height, but are a bit taller.

What about a retractable awning? You'd be more likely to need it in the summer days with the north sun, but could retract it for the evenings or winter or in a storm.