Hi, Dee Thought I would suggest Arborvitae, Emerald (Smargd). It is a tall, columnar evergreen that I use alot in my designs where I want tall and narrow. They will get to about 10-12 feet tall and three feet wide here. I have them at each corner and each angle of my house, and on either side of my front door. I grow them in full sun to almost total shade here and they do well. If anything, the shade makes them a bit narrower, which is fine with me. You were talking about depth of your beds. I find it easier to design the plantings first and then just make the beds a depth that will accomodate the mature size of the shrubbery. Be sure to leave a good two feet of empty space along the wall of the house for window washing and other maintenance. You mentioned purple foliage. I find it shows best, especially against a dark background when it has something chartreuse planted behind it. If you want to use alot of deciduous plants, you might want to consider doing a low edging around the beds, or part of the beds, with boxwood. This gives a parterre look, which I have really come to enjoy over the years. It can be low maintenance if you choose the right box. Go for low and SLOW growing varieties. I use alot of korean box (which may or may not be good as far north as you are) for this purpose. I only have to shear once a year. Be aware that boxwoods can have hungry roots. I root prune mine every year or two with a spade to keep them in bounds and away from other plantings. I can get one gallon boxwoods here for about $8 each. Of course, we don't grow Green Velvet and some of the other beautiful ones like it here in the south. One other thought. If you will get a pad of graph paper and a tape measure and go to the house, you can measure and draw out the area to scale. Just use one little box for one square foot. Then draw away (in pencil). When you are done, you'll know exactly how many plants you will need for the project. It's a low tech way, but it works. Being able to visualize things in your mind really helps. It sounds like you have that ability. Good luck! I am sure it will turn out beautifully.

I recently did a lot of research on this and realize this is a very complicated issue. Here is what I can add. 1. The heat you feel from the windows is the infrared radiation from the sun. Clear insulated glass blocks about 50% which in reality, isn't a lot. Low-E adds another 30% which translates to about 65% but I found you still have tremendous heat gain. Low-E,however, is also good in the winter since it will reflect the heat back into the room much better than regular glass. 2. As for films, you get what you pay for. The dilemna here is balancing price with tint. Almost all films will block 98% UV (which fades all fabrics). There are plenty of what I will call "relatively" inexpensive films that are usually applied to commercial buildings. They are dark green or tan, make viewing much less pleasing and in certain conditions (lower light) can reflect like mirror which will drive some people crazy. These run about $4-5 per sq. foot installed but can block up to 75%. The really nice option is very very pricey. There are two films on the market (one is a company v-kool and the other is a Deutch manufacturer I'd have to find) make films that block 50-70% of the infrared radiation with much less tinting. These run about $15/foot installed. Do the math and you can easily several thousand dollars doing 12-15 windows. I will warn you that a 50% block sounds good, but when you hold up a film to your face this is still a lot of heat coming through. Take clear insulated glass. Starts off blocking 50%. Add a 50% film and you now reduce the heat by 75%. I found that the higher blocking films made much more of a difference, but the cost didn't pay. One option is to buy shades that allow light through but block the UV and IR radiation. You have to put these down in the afternoon (can put a timer on electric ones). Another point: Films are very effective for blocking summer heat gain but do not help with the winter problem of a cold window. Only shades (by far most effective) and low-e glass work here. The last option to consider is an awning. Depending on the angle of your house and height of windows, you may not need that large an awning over each window. These will solve the heat problem. I don't know where you live, but I am in Boston where the heat gain is a major issue for 4-6 weeks. With that, there are probably 15 bad days. It's hard to justify the expense in reality, but the a/c will work a lot better. It will be almost impossible to keep any room cool with a standard a/c system if it is drenched in sun. They are not designed to work on the hottest and sunniest days. If so, the system would be way oversized. FYI- Regular screens (Anderson or Marvin) actually block another 50% of the infrared heat. There is a neat device you can purchase which measures BTUs/sq. foot which correlates with the amount of infrared getting through. It is sold by Dodge Industries, Houston, Texas for about $80. I found it very helpful to use and compare different films, shades, screens, etc. Good luck. Paul

I paid about $1100 to do (as I recall) about 9 windows, so your quote seems high. I obsessed over which tint to use--I didn't want to block the light! In the end, I went with the one the sales guy said is what almost everyone chooses, and blocks 97% of the UV rays (or close to that). He was absolutely right, I don't even notice that it's there. And now I want it on ALL the windows in our house. Then, you can assess whether you need a motor or whether you just want to take those blinds down. We have high windows (now with film on them) and I don't notice any glare or have any need or want to put anything else on those windows. It's fine.

Hi, Monica-- A backlit room would still have some exterior-visible motion through 'light filtering' cellular blinds after dark. If you're looking for a more opaque option, simply alt-up to HD's 'room darkening' version--it's the same blind cell size but with opaque backing that will give the privacy you're after. But it's a trade-off: you likely won't have gentle morning sun making it through a room darkening shade. So you'll have to prioritize which of those is the primary driver in this space. If it's not a very busy street, as you say, it may be worth trying the less-opaque version first so you can still enjoy morning light in there. Cheers!