I can't see your pic very good...too tiny for my eyes...but if it is a small enough porch & one door would shade a side (& you have old doors)...then that might be a good idea. I didn't use screen doors for my arbor, sunnyca...they are old, old heavy wood doors & I hope will last for a long time...here's a pic from last summer: If you used a door w/window opening, you could maybe do a shade made from something like GJer's are talking about above. We lost our huge Maple that shaded like your Oak...so I know what you're talking about. Good luck! Have fun! Jeanne S.

I too really wanted to avoid a shower curtain in the tub-shower combination we were making for our kids' bathroom. I didn't want the glass all the way across, but I too was concerned about water leaking out, and easy access in and out of the tub. We compromised by installing a stationary panel connected to a hinged panel, which doesn't go all the way to the other end. See the photo below. It works great, with no water leaking onto the floor even with three kids, and visually it's the best, IMHO! We heard about shower screens from people who had loved them in their European travels. I went to several shower door retailers, and several of them were clueless. Some said it couldn't be done. My contractor wasn't too familiar with them either. I found a picture in a home magazine of just such a combination -- in fact, we used the same tub they did, a Kohler Tea for Two, and then copied exactly what they had done with their shower screen, which is a fixed panel next to a hinged panel. The tub is 66 inches long, and each of the panels is about 24 inches wide. My husband and I decided on the width of the panels by looking at where the vanity ended, and we thought long and hard about how wide the hinged panel had to be to both prevent water from leaking out while people showered, and yet make it easy to get in and out. This has worked out great. We bought the shower doors through the Expo Design Center. If you have a good one in your area, they will have an extensive display of frameless shower doors/shields. The representative they sent out to measure immediately knew what we wanted, and they installed quickly and precisely. (My husband put a little clear plastic suction thing near the bottom of the door, visible in the pictures) to protect the doors if the kids banged them against the vanity counter. So far no harm has come to them, the doors, I mean!

I love sleeping porches. Wonderful wonderful things we just don't have here in the Pacific North West (it wasn't that hot). We looked at two homes in Minnesota though that I really thought had outstanding sleeping porches (both huge stone mansions so they should have LOL). I think those pictures are on the computer that is in the shop...I'll be picking it up next week. I believe that the 1914 home (called French House) was the one that had these fabulous gold glass windows on the sleeping porch...the kind of glass you would expect to see used in a stained glass. Very obscure. They opened by tipping forward from the top and could be removed entirely for the hottest part of the summer but I was told the gold glass was original because the original owner had an issue with her eyes and it was too bright with normal windows. It was a wonderful room. It just glowed. They were tall panels, maybe 24" wide or so (I'm guessing...30?" and from about 3' up the wall to nearly the top of the ten foot ceiling). The other was 1915 and it had fixed panel windows of the same (or similar size...narrow and tall) in frosted glass. The glass came from their business (we guess because it had pharmasutical (spelled terribly wrong) images etched in them). Again very pretty. Those panels swung outward or could be removed for screens in the summer. We saw a lot with plain clear glass as well but both of those rang bells when I saw your post. In yours, for the shower portion I'd consider some sort of stained or colored panel glass where your shower is (totally obscuring the shower) or you could consider walling off whatever windows are there with fake curtains in them (between the cement board and the windows) so that from the outside it would look like the windows were still there, but just closed curtains, and from the inside it could be a normal tiled shower wall. I did this in my house in alaska because we built a wall that intersected with a bank of windows. It looks like it always has from the outside. I had this done by a professional though. The window inside was sealed well against leaks. The window actually has latches on the outside to open the window with (it's on the third floor and inaccessible unless you can put a ladder in a lake and the latches aren't obvious). The latches are there so we can periodically check to be sure everything is sealed well and to access the space to recaulk inside when necessary. It does not build up condensation, and works great. We've had it for four...maybe five years this way and it's solid still. That would give your shower folks a bit more privacy (because even stained glass allows shadows) or you could use a curtain that you can pull all the way around on the inside and leave the windows be (sealed well though since they're in a shower area). Now that I've filled your brain I'll suggest one other stop. You should join the oldhouseweb . com as well as garden web. You'll find a much more active group of helpful fools who also own old homes who would LOVE to tackle your issues :) We live to tell others how to live in their homes there LOL (In a friendly way).

It is indeed a long term commitment, Nancy. One of the benefits of participating in parrot-owner groups is finding someone who can take your animals should life conditions change. Sometimes it is not death, but economics which force a rehoming of a parrot.....like large noisy macaws especially are rehomed when folks in recent years lost their homes and moved in with family or into apartments etc which did not accept such noisy pets. Of course, once night comes, parrots are quiet and asleep, but still, a macaw is a wood-eating machine and to consider what is fair to the bird is also important. They need space, and time out of the confinement. So, having someone who can permanently or temporarily care for the birds is a big issue for parrot owners. And as you say, they can life as long a life as human beings. I discovered parrots late in life, maybe when I was 45, and so any young birds I take will outlive me, given a normal longevity. My adored African greys are just now sexually mature, around 15 for one, and my big boy Kimali turned 14 on March 18.....I had him from the time he was 5 weeks old, fell in love with the little dinosaur when he was hatched only 3 days. So he's known me all his life. We have a special relationship. One of the major concerns with most people is the long term care of the parrots after we pass on. So, the parrots are in my will. I am a fan and supporter of Iowa Parrot Rescue near Muscatine Iowa, and have taken several parrots to them for my vet when folks cannot keep them. IPR is a 401c3 or whatever it is, tax deductible etc, and it is a great place out in the middle of huge expanses of corn fields, with an outdoor aviary, and a large permanent care facility along with an active adoption program. Parrots coming from a home frequently need a new family to love, and prefer to be touched and handled. Yet others have been so badly abused for whatever reasons, that they are custodial candidates. Mike and Abi evaluate potential homes before and after an adoption, and I trust their judgement with this. I have a bequest to the IPR in my will, and definitely support them during the present time. In most cases, family members are not inclined to share legacies with a bird, and in my mind it is not an optional commitment. Before everything else, my animals, dogs as well as birds, are to be provided for. My external hard drive with 10 years worth of photos on it failed, and it also contained the backups for the whole computer. So, now I must send it off to be salvaged if possible. All I have left are albums on Flickr. I might have a couple of pictures accessible but what a sad thing. I took 10 gig of photos of just my hosta garden last year, so those are gone too. Real bummer. Dolly and Dixie. Dolly is the puppy. Keno, a male eclectus parrot adopted when his mama died of esophageal cancer Kimali male African grey in the dining room Rumbles, a tiny female African grey adopted last May when her mama was diagnosed with brain tumor and lung cancer