Adventures in Sewing: Mission Block Sun

Our air conditioner is having a hard time cooling down the house in triple digit heat. When the sun hits the west side of the house*, it just heats up and the a/c is constantly running. This makes my heart (and pocket book) hurt, so I decided our sunny dining room needed some sun blocking shades.

A trip to Wal-Mart for panels that we could chop up to size, three cheapy tension rods, an hour with the ironing board and sewing machine later, we have the above. The best part, in the winter I can just pop these puppies out and it's back to sunny dining room.

Why Wal-Mart for panels? Because most of the work is already done for you and the cost is about what you'd pay for fabric you'd have the hem yourself. This way, we only had to hem the bottoms.

To be fair, my mother did the cutting and the pinning. So any size, measuring, straightness comments should be directed at her. If they're negative. If the comment is positive ... why yes, I did it myself.

*Why are we just noticing this now? After living in this house three plus years? Well we both worked before, and had the a/c up to 78 or 80 when we were gone. So when we came home at 6:30 or 7:00, we just figured the house was having a hard time cooling down from being so hot all day. Also, the back of the house, where we used to spend most of our time, is shadier, and stays fairly cool. This is great, except that Grady sleeps in the front of the house, where it's quite hot. And Grady is the one person who can not overheat.