I Use Heat-Blocking Curtains From Target in Every Room of the House
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Everyone is jealous of my perfectly preserved, built-in-1918 Craftsman house located in the trendy Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles — until they stop by during a 100-degree-plus heat wave. Even though I’ve had the place retrofitted withair-conditioning, those glorious, original single-pane glass windows (which were cleverly placed to take maximum advantage of the blazing California sunlight) still let in a good amount of heat.
So when I stumbled on a web ad for heat-blockingcurtains, I was sold.Target, my home away from home, has a pretty great selection of bothheat-blockingandtotal blackoutcurtains. (Yes, there’s a difference: Heat-blocking curtains still let a little bit of light in, while blackout curtains make your home Dracula’s castle.)
After replacing my vintage fabric curtains with the heat-blocking ones, the difference was incredible — I run the AC about half as much as I used to, and my electricity bills are a good 25 percent less than they were at the same time in previous years. Once summer’s over, I can just switch them back. My ancient house has seven different rooms of glorious, sun-baked windows, so here’s what I got to beat the heat in every room.
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Yes, I am a trendy woman who painted my living room with ‘Down Pipe’ by Farrow & Ball, sothese charcoal-gray curtains with a faint white floral motifwere a no-brainer.
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Most curtains are annoyingly long (84 inches? I am not trying to outfit a ballroom in Monte Carlo), butthese cheerful blue-and-white onesalso come in a more sensible 63-inch length, making them workable for my kitchen and laundry-room area.
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My dining room is painted a lovely celestial blue, sothese star-scattered curtainsare a genius accent.
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These color-blocked panelsare technically from Target’s kids’ furnishing line (calledPillowfort), but the décor in my home office is pretty wacky — so they work perfectly. (Although I’m leaning toward replacing them withthese delightfully grandma-style floral onesin the very near future.)
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I think there is an unwritten rule that all men have to havethose solid, boring, navy-blue curtainsin their living spaces, but I was able to convince (coerce) my boyfriend to getthese upbeat gray chevron onesfor his home-office space instead.
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My master bedroom is all Hollywood Regency style, with lacquered furniture and gold accents, sothese black-and-white, vertical-striped panelspop nicely in the space.
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I wanted my guest bedroom to be a cool, inviting space, andthese icy-blue, Moroccan-inspired curtainstotally did the trick.
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If switching out all the curtains in your house every summer sounds like a huge hassle, just put these blackout curtain panel liners up behind your existing curtains with aninexpensive tension rodto enjoy some heat-blocking bliss.
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If you want to block out heat and light in an instant (with zero tools or hassle), grab yourself a few yards ofthis 54-inch-wide blackout fabric, cut it to fit the window in question, and put it up with a set of pushpins. You can hang your regular curtains in front of it, and nobody will ever be the wiser.
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