Sun Block

 

(Photo taken at 6pm)

This weekend it was time for some "whole house sun block" efforts. As I've mentioned before thanks to the winter storms we lost a stand of redwoods that had previously been blocking the afternoon direct sun to the western facing side of our house. That's two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. One is DS's and one is my workroom. The direct sun has been driving me nuts and I was beginning to worry about sun fading the contents of my studio. We were contemplating buying solar powered outdoor vertical shades that would be installed above each window on the exterior, but even if we ordered them, it was going to be 2 months until they arrived (ie the rest of summer). We also weren't sure that it would help enough to be worth the price.

To test out the proposition that some sort of outdoor vertically hung shade would work, I remembered that we had one CoolaRoo rectangle shade that we hadn't used yet, so DH figured out how to hang it up on a (hopefully) temporary basis. It involved using our new very very tall ladder. I was happy to hold and stabilize the ladder for him and not have to climb up it myself.

It looks absolutely atrocious. 

Here's how it looks from the inside at around 1pm with the shade installed outside. These curtains were leftovers from the previous (before our house expansion) much smaller window. I made them out of a fairly heavy damask and they're lined so they were blocking enough light when I needed it before the trees fell. I'd never gotten around to installing window shades or anything in this room mostly because we weren't using it as a bedroom.

But now with the shade installed, I don't really have to use the curtains at all. This picture was taken at 1pm, so that's before the direct sun starts hitting the window, so it's plenty bright already. The air is still coming in just fine as the windows open on the sides. Unfortunately the top of the window not being covered by the shade is a bit of a problem, so maybe I'll make a temporary valance of some kind to block it. 

A downside is that I can't see out the window very well to see the sky or the trees that remain, and I can't raise and lower it like I could a shade. This is the view this morning sitting at my sewing machine.

That took care of my studio window as well as the downstairs window as well. But then for DS's window, we bought at Costco for the stellar price of $24, a pair of floor length sun block curtains. While I cut and hemmed them to non-floor length (avoiding the sewn-in magnets) DH got a curtain rod installed. They look great, and he's happy with how adjustable the light in his room is now between his blinds and the new curtains. What should I do with the leftover cut off parts of these curtains? Oooh, maybe the temporary valance I mentioned above.