apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Our window is in fact our headboard. Winter is upon us, -21C today in Ottawa (Canada), so we make sure to keep the blinds and curtains shut, to prevent the freezing draft from blowing directly on us (great way to catch tonsillitis by the way)...so no sun for us...

...what sun anyways??

I have a really hard time waking up unless there's a decent amount of light in my bedroom. I wake up really early in the summer and have a difficult time waking up at that same time in the winter. This isn't something I knew about myself until I moved from California to someplace without the same quality of light. I couldn't manager to wake up for 10am. It was painful. I'm glad to be back.

It depends how early the sun comes up. In the summer, it can be close to 5AM, which is definitely a little too early for me. Otherwise, a little sunshine is a happy thing.

Perhaps it depends on what you're used to... a life-long Seattle girl, I welcome the rays creeping into my room (at any hour). I used to sleep with a "dawn box" by my bed that simulated a sunrise by starting to light up before my alarm went off and brightened to full-spectrum capacity over the course of 30 minutes (nixed that cuz my wife can't stand it). We currently have a black-out shade in my room because there's a streetlight in the alley behind my building that would otherwise keep us up all night, but on the rare day that we do have morning sun, the first thing I do is head for my wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling living room window with Southwestern exposure and suck up the light!

THE SUN RISING.
by John Donne


BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.


Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 7-8.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/sunrising.htm

I have blackout shades in my bedroom. I need a lot of sleep, and I don't like being woken up prematurely by sunlight.

I live in London so the issue of being woken up the sun streaming in the windows is rarely a problem.

i'm with jooly--we have a blackout curtain over our bedroom window and both keep eyeshades handy in case the skylight on the other side gets menacing.

Waking to the sun is always delightful, especially compared to waking to the cat's cries of FeedMe!FeedMe!

Thanks, Kathalal.

If I close the blinds and don't have sunlight in the morning, I will wake up with a heart-pounding start which is followed by a headache. Really. I can sleep through a super bright summer morning sun no problem.

I'm glad to see so much support for sun in the morning. It seems that I am surrounded by people who love shutting out the morning rays... closing blinds, using eye shades, etc. Without the sun, I would never know when to wake up on a weekend!

Full sun is painful. Muted sunlight thru white drapery, that's fine!

some sun is fine, but i don't want it streaming across my face and in my eyes, you know?

On weekdays, I don't mind if the sun shines in cuz it sorta helps wake me up for work (depending on how tired I am).

On the weekends I would prefer darkness til I'm ready to wake up. Right now, I have only blinds on my window as I can't find any curtains I like, and the blinding sun will come peeking through the cracks right into my eyes so I have to turn the other way if I want to continue sleeping in.

Sunlight is painful for me, especially since our main bedroom window faces directly east. We have blackout shades on all windows, close the bathroom door (its window also faces east) and sleep as late as we wish (at least on the days we don't have dialysis at 7 a.m.!).

oh! I'm so delighted to finally discover my image on this post. I have a crush on your site :) so I feel flattered to be featured here! xo