Why Stow
Open Land Means Nothing Blocks The Sun
Most of the towns we work in have a sun problem caused by a neighbor's yard or a slider off the kitchen. Stow is different. The lots are big, the houses sit back from Route 62 and Route 117 at the end of long driveways, and the view from the back of the house is a field, an orchard, or a fairway. It is a fine place to sit until about three in the afternoon, when the light comes straight across all that open ground and there is not a thing to stop it.
The antique farmhouses and colonials that give Stow its character were built with porches for exactly that reason, and the porches still work in the morning. By late afternoon the sun gets under the roof. An exterior mesh shade at the porch opening stops it there. The open weave keeps the view of the field, which in Stow is the whole reason you bought the house.
Privacy, the usual reason to go to a tighter weave, hardly matters here. Temperature does. Evenings on a big lot cool off fast once the sun is gone, and clear vinyl panels can hold the warmth in on a porch in late September. The fabrics, housings, and tracks are all covered on our exterior roller shades page.
The Lake Boon side of town gets a second dose of sun bounced up off the water. That calls for a tighter weave facing the lake and open mesh on the other sides, a combination we know well.
