THE PROBLEM

Our mid-century modern living room has a giant wall of west facing desert windows.
The mountain view is spectacular but all afternoon the sun pours in.

We used hospital track to curtain other rooms, but curtain hardware would have ruined this room's lines. But electric bills were ruining our mood, not to mention the carbon footprint that was ruining the earth, the very thing we were viewing.

Considered outdoor curtain$ (excellent for insulation) but spendy, complicated to install, plus they'd get trashed in one season because of the extreme winds.

A left over piece of this new-fangled radiant barrier, silver coated bubblewrap-esque, energy star rated insulation caught our eye. (leftover from insulating a wall we built in our garage).

We're really happy with the results we got from installing it between the garage and office - so easy to work with too.

We already had a panel of stretched fabric we'd made as décor and each afternoon we'd slide it in front of one of our five windows. It did help a bit. Like one ice cube in hot coffee.

Why not build frames out of the reflector insulation? Much googling followed.

THE TEST

After exploring a lot of online options we just bought a roll of it from Lowe's, it's also available online, and taped it up on the window.

incredibly effective. However we felt like we were living in a can. So we greenlit the panels.

THE SOLUTION

Money spent: under $200. Time spent: Five hours.

We love them, it's a bit like having a Christo or Serra installation right in our very own home.

At night they really light up the room. When we're depressed they remind us to look at the silver lining. Very easy to slide in and out of position.

They areslightly less effective than the taped up version, as there is room between the panels for some air to escape. If you can live with being vacuum packed all summer just tape it up!

It also provides great lighting effects at night. See pics larger in Beth's flickr stream