Our family lives in a lovely older home (70 yrs.), with some great updates. We have a 5 1/2 foot picture window in the living room that we love. When we bought the home there were brown aluminum mini-blinds installled on it, they were nice quality custom (probably expensive) blinds, but they were dark and collected dust; I had wanted to replace them with something lighter for a long time, but didn't want to spend the money while the brown ones were perfectly good.
One update our home does not have is air conditioning; so in the summer months, I kept those dark blinds closed to keep the sun from heating up the living room.
One 85 degree day recently, I was standing near the window, and it felt much warmer than the rest of the room. I put my hand near the blinds, and they were hot! The sun was heating up my dark, aluminum blinds and that heat was radiating into the room, probably making it a few degrees warmer!
Within a few days, those ugly blinds were replaced with spring rods ($15) and garage sale sheers ($3). They may not cool my house down, but they certainly won't heat it up either, and they look 1000% prettier!

Woo Hoo! Glad you got a great deal on updating your windows.

Try hanging a shade outside the window for when the sun comes streaming in. That way the sun isn't heating up the window, too.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."

Good for you! I bet it is so much prettier!

Another thought: if you ever want to keep the sun out to keep the house cool, don't waste money on lined thermal curtains -- you can line anything yourself for about $3/yard if you watch for sales at Joann fabrics, Hobby Lobby, etc. You only have to line the portion covering the window, not all the way to the floor. You don't even have to sew it onto your curtain -- you can use iron-on hem-tape or just use the cafe clips to clip behind the other curtain!