Certainly, low light mutes colors and patterns. Perhaps you need to edit out the items that seem not to fit during daylight and replace them with items that work under all types of lighting. Personally, I don't mind the look of unlit candles, but I like the wicks to be trimmed so they look tidy. I mostly use battery-operated candles these days and have them in specific holders that I like even when the candles are not lit.

Seeing a picture would help generate comments specific to your room.

Using warm and/or strong colors such as brick red, orchid and certain
shades of green in pillows, throws and area rugs can make a big
difference. Art work can also help by introducing warm and bright
colors.

Hmmm, my rooms look good to me during the day and also at night. Your question, though, has gotten me thinking as to why they do. And why other rooms wouldn't. I always first decorate a room during the day. And then add, subtract or change what doesn't work during the evenings, if that makes sense. I need my rooms to feel cozy, comfortable and welcoming at all times, as I'm a person who is greatly affected by my surroundings.

Ideas:

- Lighting: I always have enough lamps with warm, 3-way bulbs to give any room a cozy feeling at night. Lamps tall enough to be useful for reading. Too-small lamps look clutter-y to me. Perhaps eliminating some of the candle clutter in favor of a few lamps with 3-way bulbs that have a low first setting might help?

- Color: all my rooms tend to have warm colors, rather than cool colors. My walls are all painted a warm cream. Not a dark tannish cream, but a light, almost-white cream. A more blue-ish white, IMO, would make the rooms feel colder (to me). My accent colors are on the warm side, too. If you know me from my years here on this forum, you know that my rooms tend to all be a warm cream with the warm brick floors and an abundance of art, colored accents and Middle Eastern rugs. But, even in my living room, with it's twin cream-colored sofas, there is enough warmer, darker accents around the room to keep it cozy. And lamps. At least in my opinion it does look warm, welcoming and cozy. I can imagine a room with all cool colors that would work, but it would need enough of darker accents via pillows, throws, furniture, art, rugs, etc., and enough lamps to make it feel cozy in the evenings.

Well, those are my initial thoughts on your important that is.

Dining rooms are where this is the hardest. Often, a DR looks best with the walls in a dark bottle green or a deep red. In the daytime, it doesn't look as good. So one needs to know what time of day one entertains in the DR and decorate accordingly.

Do any of you have rooms that look much better by day or by night than vice versa?

Ohhhhhhh Yesssssss! I certainly do! Let me start by saying all my other rooms have warm shades of deep tan, burnt pumpkin, sage, camel and a burnished glazed gold. Accents are (those colors) plus gold, cream, black, bronze, rusty-red, olive, plum. The offending room is the master bedroom. It was supposed to have dusky plum/purple walls (I repainted back in Oct). The master suite is totally opposite from the rest of the house style/color wise. It was intentional. But finding a plum/purple that was not too dark, not too light, not too bright, not too warm and not too cold turned out to be not too easy :o What I ended up with looks great and thisclose to what I wanted...AT NIGHT and w/ the lights on. DURING THE DAY, it borders on hideous! It's not really hideous unless you compare it what I expected it to look like. Just a little attitude adjustment about what I envisioned (and reality) and it's mucho better :) DH even told me we could have it repainted but I'm not convinced I wouldn't screw it up again :o The paint has multiple personalities. It can look 4 different colors at one time. So yes, I have a room like that. It looks much nicer at night and that's when I'm in there the most so I'm just going with it. Dimmers, EVERYTHING (and everyone) looks better in the warm glow of dimmed lighting :)

I have the same problem with my living room. It is so bright in the daytime I do not like to spend time in it. At night it is very inviting.

I think I just do not like a lot of direct sunlight. We do not have any trees that filter the light. We live higher on a hill and have great views but no filter for the sunlight. I have added window treatments which have helped immensely. While my husband is out of town, I have slightly darkened the room by closing some of the drapes, and blinds. I love it in there now! I do have loads of lamp light and other sources of light (cans and a chandelier). I will have to open it all up again for when my husband returns as he will not like me blocking our view with the window treatments closed.

It is funny that we purchased our lot and built our house around the open view and yet I feel more comfortable when the shades are drawn.

I'm not fond of direct sunlight either. I always roll my eyes during a walk-thru on these HGTV shows. Someone will always comment on "all the natural sunlight". Maybe it's because I live in Texas, maybe it's because my eyes are sensitive to light, but "all that natural sunlight" is highly overrated in my book.

Monicakm_gw, I live where we get very little sunshine year round. In fact, I recently saw that my area has the second least amount of sunshine days per year. I absolutely LOVE as much sunshine and natural light flooding into my house as possible. Even all summer long and on really hot days. :)

The only issue I have is my living room walls are a little too beigey for me during the evening with the sun coming through the west facing deck doors, and once it's dark with the lights on.

The paint is BM Going to the Chapel but none of the grey tones come out in the afternoon. It drives me nuts and I wanted to repaint but decided to wait since it was just done a a little over a year ago.

But, I absolutely adore direct sunlight. As bright as possible for me.

Could be because NY is so gloomy during the winter that I welcome all light whenever possible.

Our living room is like this. It's a low light room (one east and one shaded south window) and relatively small. I painted it "navajo white" (creamy beigish paint) and the whole rooms glows with coziness when the eastern sun comes in. So for two hours it's great, the rest of the day it's dingy, drab, and bland. The furnishings are mostly neutral. I'm planning to repaint with a dark, saturated color and add additional lamps for ambiance.

Monica, I live in Texas as well. I think bc we live in a state where we have so many sunny days and so many warm and hot hot days we enjoy having less sunlight in our homes. I guess it is a matter of over exposure. Or, maybe it is just me.