Something that a lot of people overlook when designing their homes, but often notice quickly, is the damage the sun can do to their interiors. To the paintworks, wallpaper, soft furnishing,s and even wooden furniture. While it’s always nice to get direct sunlight into a room, your home can succumb to sun damage really fast.
Sun, and glare too, can cause huge problems, especially for homes with large windows or strong directional exposure, i.e., south and west-facing rooms.
So let’s take a look at some practical ways you can reduce glare and sun damage in your home.
Adjust Window Blinds to Control Direct Light
If you have blinds in your home, then you need to make sure you’re using them appropriately. It’s not just about opening them here.
When your slats are left open all day, the sunlight comes straight through and hits the same surfaces for hours. Then over time, you’ll notice uneven fading or patches that line up with your blinds.
What you need to do is tilt blinds downward during peak sunlight hours to redirect the light towards the floor, not furniture. Then adjust the window blinds as the sun moves to help you reduce glare throughout the day, but still allow for maximum sun exposure and light to enter without causing damage in the same areas.
Install Window Film on High-Exposure Windows
Residential glass in the US already blocks UVB rays. But a significant amount of UVA rays can still penetrate the glass. And it’s the UVA light that causes the fading you can experience.
UV film addresses this issue instantly. A good quality film can block up to 99% of UV radiation without blocking natural light from entering a room. You can choose from a clear or tinted film for your windows, tinted offers more privacy while clear obviously allows light to still flood the room. This film is really beneficial on large windows or in rooms that get near constant exposure to the sun.
Move Furniture Out of Direct Sun Paths
This doesn’t mean you need to be moving your furniture throughout the day; no one has the time or energy for this.
But it means you should pay attention to how and when the sunlight infiltrates the room and where it rests. Then you can make small adjustments to the room so the items you want to protect aren’t in direct sunlight for prolonged periods.
This can help you avoid premature failures, sun damage, or fading on certain types of furniture, such as leather cracking on sofas or your bright paint on feature walls becoming patchy.
It’s not a complete solution on its own, but in conjunction with other tips, it can be massively effective.
Use Protective Finishes
If you can look for protective finishes for the furniture you want to protect.
This can look different for all types of furniture. It might be that you use sofa covers to protect leather furniture in direct sunlight, you apply UV-resistant sealants to wooden furniture, or add conditioning treatments to leather, for example all offer greater levels of protection than doing nothing and, as well as other changes, the impact can build and help you avoid problems arising from being in the line of sunlight in any given space.