Lighting an Upstairs the Only Way You Can: VELUX Skylights in Scituate

Upstairs rooms tucked under the roof — a finished attic, a top-floor bedroom, a bonus room with sloped ceilings — are some of the hardest spaces in a house to light, because the roof takes up the walls where windows would go. This Scituate home solved it the only way those rooms can be lit: VELUX skylights set into a new CertainTeed Landmark PRO roof, bringing daylight straight down through the ceiling. Pinnacle roofs go on fast — often as a one-day roof replacement — and flexible financing keeps a project like this within reach, with plans as low as 0% interest for 18 months.

A Scituate home had VELUX skylights installed into a new CertainTeed Landmark PRO roof to bring daylight into upper-level rooms under the roof, where sloped ceilings leave little wall for conventional windows. This project is in Scituate, Rhode Island, finished in CertainTeed Landmark PRO.

Scope of Work

The project set skylights into the roof to light the spaces directly beneath it. Each VELUX unit was placed over an upper-level room and flashed with its engineered metal kit and ice-and-water membrane up the curb, watertight from the first rain, while the new roof — CertainTeed Landmark PRO — was built up around them. Where a top-floor room has sloped ceilings following the roofline, a skylight opens almost directly into the space, filling it with daylight from above in a way no wall window could. The result is upper rooms that live bright instead of dim.

What We Installed (And Why)

The rooms under a roof are uniquely hard to light, and skylights are uniquely suited to them. A finished attic, a top-floor bedroom, or a bonus room built into the roof has ceilings that slope with the rafters, which means the roof occupies exactly the space where a wall and its windows would normally be. There is often only a small gable-end wall available for a window, lighting one end of the room and leaving the rest dim. A skylight changes that completely: set into the sloped ceiling, it opens the room directly to the sky overhead, pouring daylight down into the middle of the space where no wall window can reach. And because these rooms sit right under the roof with little or no attic above, the skylight often opens almost straight into the room with only a short shaft, so nearly all of its light arrives. The VELUX units here are flashed with engineered metal kits — VELUX sells them as No Leak Skylights because their dryness comes from that layered flashing, not caulk — and set into a new CertainTeed Landmark PRO roof, the heavier-weight architectural shingle rated to 130 mph with SureStart™ PLUS warranty eligibility. There is a comfort bonus too: many of these upper rooms run hot because heat rises to them, and a venting skylight lets that heat escape while bringing in light. For this Scituate home, skylights turned the hardest rooms in the house to light into some of the brightest, opening the upper level to daylight that the sloped walls could never have delivered.

Project Photo Gallery

The Scituate home’s upper level opened to daylight by skylights

The new Landmark PRO roof with VELUX skylights

Daylight pouring through a skylight into the upper space

Good To Know: How do you bring daylight into a room with sloped ceilings under the roof?

With a skylight — it is really the only way, and it is exactly what skylights are made for. Rooms built into the roof, like a finished attic, a top-floor bedroom, or a bonus room, have ceilings that slope along the rafters, which means the roof itself takes up the space where walls and windows would normally go. Usually there is only a small gable-end wall that can hold a window, and it lights just one end of the room, leaving the rest relying on lamps. A wall window simply has nowhere to go on the sloped sides. A skylight set into that sloping ceiling opens the room directly to the sky above and brings daylight down into the center of the space, reaching the areas a gable window never can. Because these rooms sit right under the roof with little attic above them, the skylight often opens almost straight into the room through only a short shaft, so nearly all of its daylight arrives — making a skylight especially effective in exactly these spaces. There is a comfort benefit as well: upper rooms tend to run hot because heat rises into them, and a venting skylight lets that trapped heat escape while it brings in light. On this Scituate home, skylights set into a new Landmark PRO roof turned dim upper-level rooms into bright, daylit spaces — the only real way to light a room whose walls are taken up by the roof.

Why This Approach Works

Rooms built under the roof have sloped ceilings that leave no wall for windows, so a skylight — opening the ceiling to the sky above — is the only real way to daylight them. Sitting right under the roof, these rooms get nearly all of a skylight’s light through a short shaft.

Why Pinnacle

Lighting upper-level rooms rewards a contractor who places skylights where the sloped ceilings need them and flashes each into a new roof so the daylight comes with no leak. As a VELUX 5-Star Skylight Specialist and CertainTeed ShingleMaster™, Pinnacle qualifies our customers for CertainTeed’s full SureStart™ PLUS extended warranty — coverage most contractors cannot offer. We’ve served Rhode Island since 2012, hold a 5.0-star Google rating across 100+ reviews and an A+ BBB rating — see our full credentials.

Scituate, Rhode Island

Scituate is a rural, wooded town in central Rhode Island with many older homes and colonials whose upper floors and finished attics tuck under the roofline — exactly the rooms that skylights transform. Shaded lots make that daylight all the more welcome. VELUX skylights set into a new Landmark PRO roof suit how Scituate homes use the rooms beneath their roofs. Explore our work across Scituate roofing services.