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Our Covered Deck Just Got Shadier

Posted on June 1, 2013 by under Home Ownership.    

We love our new house and everything, but the one thing that we’ve always complained about Casa de Felitaciones is that the deck/backyard faces West so it gets way more sun than we like in the afternoons. There was a house behind us that we really wanted a couple of years ago (it’s a really beautiful house but we liked it mostly for the East-facing yard), but we were afraid to make an offer on it. Anyway, we found our house a year later and got a really good deal on it so we were willing to compromise on the yard orientation. We figured we could always get some sun shades for the deck, which we have finally done.

I’d been wanting to get sun shades since we moved last year but hadn’t found the right one until now. I found these Coolaroo sun shades in desert sand color on Amazon, which I thought would work great. They actually far exceeded my expectations. The color matches our exterior paint almost perfectly.

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It blends in so well that you don’t even notice it when it’s retracted.

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The other thing that I love about them is that they block the sun but not the light so you still get plenty of natural light. That was one of my concerns with putting some shades on the deck. I didn’t want it to get dark. I can’t begin to describe in words how well these shades fit my needs. They’re exactly what I wanted.

The only down side is that we underestimated the height of our ceiling. I thought the six-foot length would be sufficient. When we unroll the shades, they don’t quite reach the deck railing. Brian and I came up with an ingenious solution, though.

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It’s not the prettiest solution but it works. Basically, we extended the tie downs by using nylon cord attached to a plastic clip. The mate of the clip is attached to our deck railing. That keeps the shade from flopping around in the wind. It’s a concern for us because it’s pretty windy in these parts. Anyway, when we are done, we just unfasten the plastic clips and roll the shade up. One part goes up with the sun shade and the other part is permanently affixed to the railing so we don’t have to mess with tying knots every time. All we have to do is fasten and unfasten the plastic clips. Mighty clever, right? I thought so.

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