Dear Sandi: I have a room that gets too much sunlight. I love the light, but it is just too intense, and I don’t really want to lose the view either. What can I do to help with this problem? —Glenda F. Salem

Hi Glenda: Wow —too much sunlight in Oregon. That’s almost an oxymoron, isn’t it?

I do know what you mean, though. Sometimes a southern or western exposure can be too much of a good thing. Direct sunlight will fade things, and it can make a room so hot in the summer that it is miserable to be in.

I have given suggestions in the past for putting up one of the lighter-weight, handmade papers, either directly on the window, using egg whites, or indirectly by making a variety of different types of things, including screens, a framed paper, etc.

The drawback to all of the paper solutions, of course, is that you will lose any view you have, although you still will get a fair amount of light coming into the room, depending on the type and thickness of the paper you choose.

Because you want to keep the view, the paper fix probably is not going to work unless you wanted to put together some type of movable screen (like an oriental shoji screen) that could be placed in front of the window during those hours when the direct sunlight is at its most intense. The drawback here, of course, is that you would have to remember to do this everyday.

There also are window treatments you can apply to your windows to filter out most of the more harmful rays. If you want to keep your windows naked, this might be a good option to explore. My understanding is that they really work quite well, though I have never had any personal experience with the treatment.

I am assuming you have thought about vertical blinds. The problem with these, in my opinion, is that they are just too accessible, you see them everywhere, and that, for me, usually eliminates them from my viable choices.

Another option that you might want to consider is something that we did this spring for one of the Tour of Homes in West Salem.

We chose one of our sheerest organic textiles, abaca fiber, and put up simple tab curtains that had been made of this material. Since we were going for a coastal theme, we used ones that had been festooned with lots of seashells, but you could work with plain abaca fiber textile, which comes in a large assortment of colors, including ones that have a sparkle woven into them with random metallic threads.

Abaca fiber is a tough material that comes from the trunk of a tree in the banana family. Because it is so strong, it is used for a great variety of things, from flooring to clothing. When it is woven into this organic textile, it is a lightweight, yet very durable material that makes a very interesting window treatment. In your situation, the biggest advantage that it would offer you is how transparent it is.

There are a variety of other semi-sheer fabrics to consider, too. Although most of them will help filter out and subdue the amount of sunlight coming into the room, many of them would probably not allow for too much visual access outside.

If you are considering this, I would suggest going into a fabric store and looking through all of the various sheer fabrics, then holding any that appeal to you up to a window in the store to see what effect and visual access to the outside they offer.

If you’re really persuasive, you might be able to get one of the store personnel to hold a yard or so up so that you can walk back a bit to really see how transparent it will be.