I lived in such a house in Sacramento, and the situation was made worse by the fact that there was a covered patio outside the family room, making it even darker. I would never live in such a house again after that experience. The kitchen and several bedrooms, including the master, were also on that side. That was the first home I ever bought and I didn't know any better, but I certainly do now.

The amount of light that comes into a house is extremely important to me. A light-filled house makes me happy. I learned that through trial and error.

My worst housing decision was a north facing condo in Chicago with a balcony. Except for a few days a year, there was no sunlight. Years later we bought a colonial house with skylights in the upper level bathrooms. I loved them!

Why are the south-facing rooms dark? Lack of windows? Overhangs? Porch? Another house? You should be getting tons of light from the south.

If everything else about the house is wonderful, you can look at ways to improve the lighting, such as skylights and solartubes. And of course, lamps.

In the Southeast, shading the southern sunlight is desirable for heat control. I don't know much about the weather in SoCA.

The front of my house faces north, that allows the great room wall of windows to face south! Yeah! The north side is the city lights view, the south is fully wild and wooded. I LOVE it! It's "very" bright. Your right, sunshine makes people happy!

I guess I'm on the opposite side - I like the dim, denlike feeling! Our last house was quite dark because it was in thick woods and I liked that about it; I embraced it with midtone paints. (I go by the rule of "light paint for light rooms, darker paint for darker rooms", since I find that trying to make dark rooms light with pale paints just doesn't work. It gets drab and dingy-looking and just... sad, while the deeper tones, which can be garish in bright light, just get richer.) The master bedroom was on the northeast side to boot, so I didn't get blinded in the morning, but even the southwest side was pretty dim most of the day except for about 2-3 hours in the early afternoon because of the trees. In our current house the two rooms on the front of the house, the living room and master bedroom, face south and not only does it get viciously hot in there in the summer but the sunlight is very intense - and I live way up in the Northeast! We have to keep the blinds closed in the summer so we don't have to crank the AC or fry our eyeballs, so it might as well be naturally dark. :-) The back half of the house (kitchen, 2 smaller bedrooms - guest and library - and bathroom) is much, much darker since it's not only north facing but shaded by a porch on one side, the close proximity of the house next door on the other, and woods in the back. The kitchen is really dark, but PO put in so many recessed cans that we had to put them on a dimmer because it was lit up like an operating room!

I wouldn't rule out a house for it. If I like the layout of the house I would look at what is making the rooms dark. For example our last house was dark but I unintentionally made it that way because I was trying to keep the house cool during brutal summer temps. I put sunscreens on the west facing windows, I painted the inside a dark color, I bought thermal drapes that didn't let much light in, etc. So the feel of the house was definitely a cooler one.

I would also think about the functionality of the dark rooms. Are they rooms that benefit from having less light?

We have a house in which the rooms on the Left side get little sunlight, and the rooms on the right of the house get a nice amount. We are looking into solartubes for the rooms that don't get as much light.

Thank you all for your responses. The rooms that lack a lot of natural light are the family room, master bedroom and office next to the master. Nothing is blocking those windows but they are on the smaller side and all face the back of the house. I appreciate all the replys!

Put in some sun tunnels, they are amazing.

In my new house I have porches on three sides and can't wait to live there. Here is why.

Where I live now my house faces East so I get the glaring, hot morning sun. Since Katrina took down the last of my 3 trees, I'm completely at the mercy of the morning sun and I hate it. We replaced the windows but even they can't block all the heat generated. As for the sun, it's so bright it gives me a headache.

On the back of the house it is shaded from the afternoon sun because we have a romper room type structure for the outdoor cats built on to the back of the house and it has a roof. The room is dark, but I don't mind it. I have bright white bulbs in the lamps and fixtures and when I turn on the lights it's very cozy and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I enjoy opening the blinds and not having the sun blasting in.

On the North side of the house is our den and that is the side where we have the carport built onto the house, so that room is also not bright from outside light and I love it.

I am not a big fan of real bright outside like coming into a house. I'm light sensitive so glaring light gives me a headache. I much prefer lighting from other sources like canned, wall sconces and uplights for accent lighting, lamps for general and tasks and only have ceiling lighting from a fixture or fan, for cleaning or looking for a contact lense. Don't get me wrong, I love having windows for light to come in, just not streaming into the room.

In 21 years in this house we've only had to change the bulbs in our overhead lighting once. That tells you how much we don't use those fixtures, yet I think they are necessary to add to the overall decor of the room and to look for contacts. LOL We use our wall sconses and lamps 24/7. The exception is the kitchen as I iike it very bright in there so the overhead lights are on all the time.