I planned for everything except the sun rising each morning.

[Packard]

Not sure, why but I know a LOT of people who would kill to be able to eat breakfast in a room with direct morning sunlight. Even better, a terrace with one.
[…]

The main appeal of the room is the view, so facing the window made sense.  Or I could have it facing a wall, or facing a window looking into the living room.  Facing the wall or the living room were unappealing options. 

I tried to capture the morning sun as I see it, but the camera tries to compensate leaving the interior under-exposed and diminishing the effect of the sun.  But here is my best effort from this morning at approximately 7:30.  That is probably the worst of it and the problem goes away about 30 minutes later.

At this time of the year, the sun makes its entrance at about 6:30 but only becomes annoying about 15 or 20 minutes later.

 

[squall_line]

Hopefully it's only a problem a few weeks of the year.  In my office, we're currently in the pre-solstice weeks where I need to close the drapes if it's sunny between 8:30 AM and 11 AM, but that will end soon and start again in early January, IIRC.

It's pretty amazing how much the sun has "moved" in where it comes into our east-facing living room in the morning compared to where it hit in the height of summer.  A gentle reminder of the changing of the seasons and the tilt of our planet.

 

[Packard]

Today, in my area, the sun rose at 7:04 (I just looked this up).  In June on the vernal equinox (the longest day of the year) it will rise at 5:21.

So come summer, this is not going to be an issue and probably not an issue starting around March when the sun rises at 6:30.  But for the next few months, I think the window shades will solve the problem.

They are light filtering double honeycomb shades, so the room will remain bright and sunny, but not “in-your-face-sunny”. 

I ordered the shades online so I hope I got the measurements right.  I should know in a couple of weeks.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Even when it does move up/down at different times of day, it still does it in different places too.
At my house, the only time the sun is annoying to me is around 4:00 in the afternoon in the late fall/winter. This is because of the lower southern trajectory. During the summer, when it is at the same height above the horizon, it is much further west. Then it gets blocked by the house next door.....yes we are that close together.

 

[Packard]

The zoning where I live calls for a 50 foot setback, or 100 feet minimum between houses, and the windows facing an adjacent home has to be 5 feet from the floor.  If good fences make good neighbors and there is no fence, then 100 feet of separation is the next best thing.

I never paid attention to the location of the sun until I built the bar against the windows.

And veering off course here, the bar stools I bought have lower rungs meant to function as foot rests.  But my feet want to be a few inches in front of that rung.  I made a box 10” x 10” x 3 feet and experimented on the height and location of the foot rest.  11” off the ground was the most comfortable for me and about 8” from the front edge of the counter.

The difference in comfort the separate foot rest made is remarkable. If you have a bar and bar stools, it is worth the effort to make a foot rest box and experiment.

I now have to make a 8’ long version (that hopefully looks better than the plywood box I am currently using).

 

[mino]

The zoning where I live calls for a 50 foot setback, or 100 feet minimum between houses, and the windows facing an adjacent home has to be 5 feet from the floor.  If good fences make good neighbors and there is no fence, then 100 feet of separation is the next best thing.
...

Over here, we have 7 meters between houses, but there is a possibility for exception of a house even all the way to the plot boundary - if one agrees with the neighbour. Then windows or vents are prohibited on that side of the building ...

The idea is that almost all land here is arable and arable land should not be "wasted" for towns/villages but put to a better (agricultural) use. So building plots are way smaller than I see common in US.

Side benefit is one does not require a car to move around as the towns/quarter are dense-enough for school/grocery/etc being a walking distance.
[smile]

 

[Packard]

I’m not sure that the setback is required by the building code or simply was the decision of the builder who constructed all the houses on our block. 

The very next street over, they have homes much closer together and much closer to the road.

I value privacy (and I play the TV too loud) so the distance from the neighbors was a factor in choosing this house.

The footrest assembly is complete.  The poly on the oak is not fully cured so I am only using this while unshod.  I like to wait 200 hours before using and that would be about one week. 

The footrest is not attached to the wall or the floor as I will be putting in new flooring and having the ability to move it will make it easier to clean the floor.  It weighs just under 12 pounds, so not too difficult.  I put on leveling feet, but it did not require any adjusting.

So everything is done except for the window shades which have not arrived yet.

I am refacing the kitchen, so that will keep me busy for a while.  Thanks for looking.

 

[Packard]

My order for the double honeycomb blinds arrived a couple of days ago.  This morning was the first time we had bright sun since then.

The honeycombs are made from some sort of textured resin that allows light through.  The honeycomb is supposed to add insulation; the double honeycomb is supposed to add more. 

The single honeycomb filters the light through two layers of plastic film; the double filters it through 3 layers.  I opted for the double honeycomb on the theory that greater light dispersion would make the direct sun more tolerable.

For some reason I cannot get the images to appear in the post.  The links work though.  I’ll have to figure this out.

The camera is not able to record the full range of lighting.  I have edited it to most accurately show the amount of light in the room, so the shade looked blown out.

The room remains bright and sun-filled.  I will check later and see how much it actually darkens the room with no direct sun.

The shades are easier to hang than roller shades.  Like roller shades the brackets need to be mounted with both clips identical for up/down and fore/aft, but unlike roller shades the distance between brackets is variable.  This greatly simplifies installation.

The brackets can clip on to the channel that is part of the top of the shade and runs the full width.  I placed mine about 5 - 6 inches from each end.  The shade installs with a satisfying click, so there is no ambiguity on whether it is attached or not.

The shades were surprisingly expensive.  I thought they would be $50.00 to $70.00 each.  But closer to $125.00 each from Blinds.com.

They operate smoothly and appear to be of good quality.