I love sunlight.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I post a picture and just a few words; a 104 project instead of a 365 project.
Pretty much every morning, no matter the weather or time of year, as soon as it's daylight, I open all the curtains and blinds.
I don't really care that it's super cold outside or that the uncovered windows let in some chilly air. There's sunlight to be had behind those curtains, and that is all that matters to me.
(Even if it's overcast out, I still open the curtains because a little daylight is better than none!)
I know some people are the opposite of me and hardly ever open their window coverings. How about you?
Yes, every day. I have such a closed-in feeling if I don't open them. Plus, a few plants in my kitchen need their light!
This has been a very bleak winter in Central Texas with little sunlight to be found....but, this week we have had abundant sunshine. And I feel myself coming back to normal. I really need that vitamin D to be my best self. My blinds are open 24/7 to let in light. I love sunshine!
We too open the blinds at first light, if not before. I wait to close them at night until it is pretty dark outside. I feel so much better when there is sunlight but I walk outside nearly every day, regardless of the amount of light and the weather. While I appreciate the indoors I truly believe we need the great outdoors to be well (physically and psychologically).
Yep - those blinds need to be opened. Not only do I need to see the light (that sounds a bit strange), I also need to see "out" of the house. It is a connection of something larger than myself and my little world here. Plus, we have a lot of "nature" around us and it is soothing to the soul. I am lucky as my husband is as good as an automatic blind opener/closer. Like clockwork, they get opened in the morning and closed in the evening. I only have to do a couple for a couple of our plants that need Mr. Sun too.
I love to have the curtains open for the sunlight but my husband only likes them open when he's reading. So we compromise! I keep my blinds and curtains ALL the time in my sewing room. Both for me and my cats!
I would have to agree! I'm not a sleeper-inner unless I am ill. And having light come in is a mood lifter.
first thing i do when i get up, open the shades (unless I am changing)! I love natural light and being able to see the birds (and occasional deer). I also like to let in the small amount of solar heat when the shades are up...and there is nothing better than seeing my cat laying in the sunshine!
It never occurred to me that anyone would keep their windows covered during the day! Is that true? I can't imagine it. I don't even close them at night, but the way our house is situated, it really isn't necessary for privacy. Definitely need the sunlight and the connection to outdoors, too!
I know some people do it to try to keep things warmer, and also to keep sun from damaging furniture/rugs, etc.
In the summertime, I do sometimes keep the curtains by my sofa shut when the sun is at its brightest, but at that time of the year, it's bright indoors even with the curtains shut!
Yep, my husband does this, my mom too. Wird to me.
(leaving it close while being home, I mean)
I'm like you! I need light!!!! The more, the better. Natural or artificial, don't really care, as long as it's bright. My husband can spend hours in the dark. I can't, it makes me depress.
I never bother opening the blinds on work days. In the winter it is dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home. On days off I leave the blinds closed a lot anyway. My living room has very few windows and doesn't get much sun. My house is kind of a dark house, which is probably one of my least favorite things about it. I love natural light.
ME TOO! I couldn't even stand to put curtains on my windows when we first moved in our home. We live in the country so we have lots of privacy without needing to hide too many windows. I am very thankful for lots of good quality windows and beautiful views from all of them!
Absolutely! I need the sunshine and to connect with the outside world. As soon as weather permits I open my windows as well. Taking in a the sights and smells and sounds is so vital to me.
I'm with you! I hate it when it gets hot in the summer and I have to close some of the window coverings. Otherwise they are open from dawn (well, at least when I wake up) till dusk! I am not loving this freezing cold weather, but I have definitely noticed the days getting longer, with more daylight both in the morning and evening, and that definitely helps!
I open all my blinds or curtains first thing! Helps to start the day and get everyone moving and I like the sunlight (if it's not cloudy) to help warm the house in the winter. My husband is the opposite, so we're constantly behind the other opening/closing blinds.
I don't have curtains anywhere in the house. We're not near the street, and have a walk-out basement. The windows are big, and we have lots of trees. It's like having the yard inside, with all the house plants.
In my kitchen, dining room and entryway, I have expandable rods (the kind that fit inside the window casing). I've threaded my grandmother's doilies onto them (they're all different), to make lacy valances. I love using them where they can be seen. One does have the clip-on curtain rings.
Driving by homes with curtains/towels/sheets over the windows - I wonder what they're hiding in there. And hope they don't have pets.
Light the sun shine in!
I think it would be very sad to worry about the sun ruining your carpets or furniture and therefore living with the curtains shut all the time.
I might close curtains in the height of summer, but even then it's rare!
That's my thought. I'd rather have to replace the rug and furniture than live in the darkness.
I always feel guilty when I leave the curtains open because it can waste energy at times. I still leave some open though. Glad to hear it can be worth it to leave them open.
I live for the sun!
In most cases, I'm all for letting the sunlight in! Though I leave our bedroom curtains closed. I'm a horrifically light sleeper, our bedroom is on the east side of the house, and there was still enough light getting in around the edges of the blackout curtains that I kept waking up way earlier than I wanted to in the summers. So we ended up taping butcher paper all over the windows to keep it dark enough that I could actually sleep after 5. (We're not morning people in this house.)
Oh, I shut them all at night for sure. But during the daytime it's another story!
Oh yes. As soon as I'm fully awake, I want sun and lots of it.
Oh me too! I love the sun, and opening the curtains/blinds is the first thing I do every morning. Not that it means there is sun coming in as we get a LOT of cloud cover here - but still, I have to be able to see out!!
I also love natural light. This time of the year tends to be very overcast in west Michigan and I find myself trying to eke out as much daylight as I can. For some reason, my son likes his room dark--when I'm home and he's at school, I open the windows, and he closes them when he returns. Makes me crazy, but ...
I live to keep my windows open. My blinds are always up and my curtains apart. The only shades I pull are my daughter's at bedtime. Closed curtains, blinds etc make me feel shut in. Love your blog.
I open the curtains each morning too. I figure the sun is passive heating and I'd be crazy to let that go to waste!
If I lived in a better area, I would ALWAYS open my blinds. As it is, too many people try to look through my windows. Then again, I'm in Southern California so the extra insulation is not as much of an issue.
I do LOVE sunlight though 🙂
I'm with you. The more light the better. I also like being WARM. I used to keep the honey-comb shades down to conserve heat but a few years ago I invested in triple paned windows. They work very well at keeping the cold damp air outdoors.
Summer in the PNW even on the sunniest days isn't too hot so I let in all the light I can.
In a month or so I'll be letting the sun streaming in my bedroom window be my alarm clock. I love when I can do that.
Our new house has several architectural windows without coverings. They are so beautiful that I have no plans to cover them up, ever. The house is designed so that light from exterior windows illuminates the hallways, so it was a trick getting my MIL (who has Alzheimer's) to stop closing the bathroom door and window blinds all the time. The only covered windows that we close on a nightly basis are the two visible from the street. I'm a California girl through and through, so it's maximum light and no SADD for me!
Our house has only one window that faces the street, and there are so many trees it would be impossible to look inside without actually walking up the driveway and the front walk and looking directly in. That's the only window in our house that even has curtains or blinds is the one facing the front, and we pretty much never close them. I can't understand why anyone would keep them closed unless you're really close to other houses or public spaces.
Yep, it's one of the first things I do in the morning. I'd much rather have the natural light vs. a lamp.
Yes! I love sunlight, too! Everyday, unless it's super cold (because I'm just not a cold weather person at all), the curtains and blinds are open!
I love sunlight and any other kind of natural light. My husband has extremely sensitive eyes & bright light throws him into a migraine, therefore the room I'm in always has the curtains/blinds open & the one he's in they are always closed.
My husband prefers to keep the windows covered, so they pretty much only get uncovered on the weekends. It does get very bright in our living room in the afternoon, and I have sensitive eyes, so they get covered back up before sundown in that room. During the week, I'm at work most of the day so I usually don't bother, especially during the winter. Plus, we live in a townhome-style apartment and my husband is a little weird about privacy. Our windows are also old, so the coverings help with noise reduction.
There is something about letting natural light into a room that seems to freshen it up, even the windows are closed and the room is, in fact, a disaster, so I do think it's important to throw back those window coverings occasionally!
I open a few. We have a whole wall of windows that faces the West. If I open them, I forget to close them before the afternoon hits and we end up boiling. If we lived in a cooler climate that would be fine, but since we live in South Florida it doesn't work out too well. I hate keeping them closed though! Even so, it's worth the lower energy bill.
For the most part, we keep them closed in the front of the house and open in the back. Closed in the front for a few reasons.
1. I like to hide from solicitors. And I can't hide if they see me.
2. More light makes it easier for me to see all the corners that I haven't dusted, the spots on the counters, the hair I haven't swiffered yet. Ugh, I hate housework.
3. I live in California and we get sun year round so I don't miss it.
Yeah, me too. I can't stand dark rooms!
So many houses in our neighborhood have their curtains drawn all the time. Only light you see through there is the flicker of the TV. Pretty sad, IMHO.
Don't worry about us, those of us who like the curtains closed aren't sad when they're closed.
In the winter the blinds come up as soon as the sun is up (9:30-10:30) to make it feel like we actually have some sunlight. The exception to this is when it's below 0° outside. Then the curtains in the windows on the far side of the house (we're part of a duplex) stay down because that side of our house is so much colder than the side of our house attached to the duplex. I try not to put the blinds down until we're winding down. If we truly followed the sun, we'd be closed in for 19 hours of the day, and that's downright depressing, even if it is dark outside anyway! In the summer, curtains open when we get up and go down a bit before bedtime to help relax us for bedtime. If we followed the sun in the summer, we'd never have our blinds down and we'd never sleep!
It is one of the first things I do each morning. It really makes everything look better and improves my mood......and I have a cat that loves to find his place in the sun
I open the curtains/blinds in the winter & close them in the summer. It makes a huge difference in how cool our home is in the summer. I do love the winter sun & how it brightens up the inside.
We have tons of natural light from extra large windows. I got some white energy saving sheers and ots kinda blinding!
Its a good problem and I am glad cuz those windows are not super and will let in a bit of chill completely bare. Still, if company comes we open it all up becsuse its just a lot prettier.
It depends - if I'm out of the house all day I do tend to keep the curtains closed (mainly because I'm lazy), but when I'm home I definitely open them 🙂
I open the living room curtains, but don't typically bother with the rest of the house. We have a huge picture window in the living room, and a pretty open floor plan, so that one window lights the living room, dining room, and kitchen nicely :). Since those are the rooms we spend most of the day in (I homeschool my kids too), those are the ones that matter to me.
I close window coverings at night. However, during the work week I keep the living blinds closed because I am not there to enjoy the light and it keeps the cold at bay. However, my dining room blinds I open so my plants can enjoy the sunlight. When I get home from work (if it is light enough) I will open the living up until dark.
I open mine every single day !! Wakes me up! Let’s me know it’s a new day and more hours to work hard :).