Bradley and I live in one of those neighborhoods where the builder came in, scalped the land and built the same four houseplans on 200+ small lots. For this reason, there are not any original trees around to shade the neighborhood. The only one we did have when we first moved in was a precarious Pear tree that we took down a couple of years ago out of fear for life and property.
The sun comes up behind our house and goes down in our unprotected front yard. The beating afternoon sun on our front door makes the foyer significantly hotter than the rest of the downstairs. Now that we have replaced the garage door opener and Bradley can get in through the garage, we decided to go ahead with an idea I had brought up a while back.
I purchased a new tension rod and two thermal backed curtain panels and hung them over the front door/sidelight. It is easy enough to take down if we have company, but we decided that it doesn’t really look bad for them to just be pushed to the side, because the curtain color is very close to the wall color.
For just the little while we had them up last night after I got home from work, it seemed to really help. So it may seem ghetto, and if anyone thinks so, they can just keep it to themselves, but if we can save on cooling costs and stay more comfortable while we are at it, I’m all about it.