Help me decorate my west-facing porch! Curtains?

[Trilliumlady]

Ugh.  It’s hot.  The sun has been beating in our living room windows which look out directly onto our covered 14x8 foot front porch.  This gets worse as the day goes on, unfortunately, and the sun sets.  I am thinking some outdoor curtains might help block this, but have never worked with outdoor curtains before.  I could throw up curtains in the living room windows, but then I’d feel like I’d need to curtain every other window on this open concept floor which, as we living in the country, is not necessary or at the top of my priority list.  

I’ve been googling and looking at Amazon but it’s so hard to tell which ones would be thick enough to cut the heat of the sunlight (even a small to moderate amount would help) but still be somewhat sheer enough to not feel like it’s entirely closed in when I would close them.  The 14 foot side is the one I’d be looking to do, though I might consider throwing one up on the south facing 8 foot side as well.  We are on a hilltop and windy (so much so we don’t have air conditioning and would rarely need it) so it would really only be on the hottest days of the year that these would really be a serious help and not need to be just a decoration. I would likely tie them to the 3 posts that span the 14 foot width when not in use.  

Only other item on the porch is a pair of Adirondack chairs, backs to the windows, facing west.  

Any wisdom? Links? Suggestions? BTDT here are the perfect curtains??

[Trilliumlady]

Hmm, I’ll look into them.  I’m afraid that with the crazy winds we get up here in some storms just the fact that something as “heavy and structured” as bamboo blinds would be destroyed in a storm if they were tied into position.  The winds routinely have blown heavy, homemade wood adirondack chairs off the porch and rolling down into the field.  Seriously, it’s insane.  So at least with curtains if i forget to have them tied back the least they will do is flap in crazy wind.

[Trilliumlady]

Bump?

[KatieJ]

Maybe a window film for your living room windows.

[Pawz4me]

At our former house we had outdoor roll up bamboo shades on a west facing screened porch. They worked very well, but we made sure to always roll them up before a storm, or if storms were expected and we were going to be away we rolled them up before we left, just in case. So they required some vigilance but worked well.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Pawz4me

[Mbelle]

Can you plant a couple of fast growing trees?  Bradford Pear for example.

 

[Ellie]

We have shades that are made for blocking the sun. We've had them up for about 15 years. In the winter we keep them rolled up; along about April we roll them down and leave them. There are hooks on the bottom on each end, and eyes in the posts, and they stay hooked pretty well.

[DoraBora]

Curtains like these (below) would be nice.  We use similar in our sunroom, which is on the southwest side of our house.  If I close all of them, it gets pretty gloomy, but dd showed me the trick of leaving a five or six inch opening between panels to let in the light and keep out (most) of the heat.  It works well and looks really nice.

https://www.amazon.com/Pony-DANCNE-Patio-Outdoor-Curtain/dp/B0739GYDRQ/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=light+blocking+outdoor+curtains&qid=1595773173&sr=8-7

A tip:  We have some friends who use outdoor curtains on their patio to block the summer sun.  They threaded chains through the curtain hems to weigh them down, though it is a good idea to tie them back when the weather is stormy.  They also close them completely during our mild (Texas) winters to make another room in their house for holiday gatherings and such.

Edited July 26, 2020 by DoraBora

[matrips]

In Arizona, we had some kind of film applied to our windows because the sun was fading the furniture something terrible. I don’t remember more though.