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Friday, June 21, 2013

Letting the Sun Shine in

Many homes in Arizona are dark in an effort to keep the home cool during hot summers. It is nice for cooling the home, but hard for living. I love having sunshine stream through the windows. I like awakening with the sun and following its natural rhythms. Our previous houses have been dark. Our new home has many windows, most of the which are shaded with porch or patio. This house is nice and bright, which is fantastic for me.

For the first week we lived here, we had no window coverings on most of the windows. There were room darkening shades on the kiddos' rooms to help them sleep, but the rest were wide open. I hesitated to cover the windows and block the beautiful sunshine. Of course, at night I felt like we lived on stage. As we unpacked boxes and moved furniture, I imagined the neighbors watching and making up their own stories about our lives. In one of the boxes, I found two long sheer panels that we had used on Aine's canopy bed. Since her canopy is defunct after too many slides down the corner poles, I decided to repurpose the sheers.

I was able to fashion four cafe curtains from the two panels. The curtains begin partway down our paned windows and allow sunshine through them. The house is still nice and bright, but we don't feel quite so much on display! We still need curtains on a few more windows, but those will be finished soon.

As I sewed and hemmed the curtains, I listened to my current audiobook, Girl in Translation. I really enjoy listen to a book while I am doing another task. I am glad my kiddos have inherited this love of the spoken word as well.

* joining in with Dawn for a bit of Making and Listening this week.

7 comments:

  1. I hear you on the sunshine and love to see it streaming through my windows too. In the summertime as the sun begins to set I do have to close blinds to keep it a little cooler, but as soon as the sun dips behind the pines the blinds are opened. I love you cafe cutains, they are super cute.
    I love listening to books while I am working in the garden, it does make weed pulling so much more enjoyable.

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  2. I agree with you about sunshine! I love it, yet my hubby likes to close all the curtains in the summer in an attempt to keep our home cooler and save on the ac bill. I got some nice white cotton panels from IKEA that I have hung in a couple of rooms. I like that the room can still have natural light with the curtains drawn. Previously we had pull-down shades that were in the house when we bought it and when they were down, our room was like dark cave even in the middle of the afternoon. Like Tracey, I open the blinds and curtains as soon as the bright afternoon sun is a little lower in the sky and not coming directly into the windows. Our living room faces north so thankfully, I can keep those blinds open all the time. Glad you are enjoying your new Arizona home!

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  3. What a great solution!! Enjoy that sunshine.

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  4. i can't wait to see how they came out. :)

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  5. love your pretty curtains heather, i agree with you though, it would be so hard to have dark shades!

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  6. Let that sun shine in!!!! (but I do so understand the 'privacy' thing...when we first moved to this house, someone commented...gee, I see you painted you bedroom red!!!! yikes!!! )

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  7. This made me smile. I still need to put curtains on our kitchen window and that is the one facing the street. At night I do feel a bit on display.
    Love the idea of using the sheers. Keep the light!
    Thanks for joining in. Sorry it has taken me so long to check in... catching up from our trip to Colorado!

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