RE: Need advice about window treatments for a very sunny (HOT!) nursery-to-be
One thing I would recommend independent of your window treatment is to have the windows treated with a film. You can buy some do-it-yourself at home depot or whatever, but we had ours professionally done. We had our very large (floor to ceiling) windows in our family room, our bedroom, and our daughter's room done with a very lightly tinted film that blocks out 80% of the heat. The back of our house faces west and gets a lot of sun in the afternoons and this has helped tremendously! Our daughter has wood blinds on her windows and it works just fine. Yes some light does come in but she goes to bed quite early (around 6:45 p.m., used to be much earlier when she was under 1) and even with the sun fully out she hasn't had a problem sleeping.
M, mommy to A 2005, E 2007, and L 2010