Please tell me how to survive in a West facing kitchen

[Sunsetsarehellinmyhouse]

I'm losing the plot.
It's actual torture.
Every time it's time to cook dinner from June to early Sept I am on the brink of a meltdown after an hour in my west facing kitchen. The back wall that faces the sun is 8 foot wide and all glass. Glass back door. Glass big window. No actual wall.
The sink is underneath the window, facing the setting sun.
The length of my kitchen is 10 foot and there's nowhere I can stand to escape the sheer intense heat burning into my kitchen from 5pm onwards as the sun lowers until it is directly opposite my kitchen.
I sweat. I wince. I wear sunglasses inside. My legs get sunburn from standing at the hob or worktops as the sun penetrates in to the room.
I can't cope.
I can't cook and wash up earlier in the day cos I'm at work.
I can't cook later at 8pm once the torture is over because my young DC need dinner at 5 or 6 pm latest.
If I leave all the washing up till 8pm by then I'm doing bedtime with DC and don't get back downstairs till gone 9pm and by then I'm knackered with a headache due to the intense heat torture of the kitchen earlier on.
HTF does anyone cope with a tiny box sized west facing kitchen with a glass back wall?
Blinds don't make it any better because I need the glass door and window open for ventilation otherwise I can't even stand in there.
I feel like crying.
Never thought about this when we viewed the house in November.

Yes, the electric awning absolute life changer. Although I don't cook when it's very hot. Salad and picky bits!

This.

We put towels up covering our windows in small terraced house during last heatwave. By being there all day, kitchen was much cooler and didn't "need" to open window / door either.

Have used Blinds2Go and 247blinds myself at previous houses.

I hate them, plus they're really easy to break into. I only have one door in my flat. Which is the shame, I'd like a door in my living room to open when the sun has gone round (but it would need something like a gate or railings in front as my living room faces the street and there's no fences on the bit of grass in the front.)

OK, grapes need something to climb up, but there's an expanse of glass where most people have walls that would have trellis or square large chicken wire attached. So you need to give them wires.

You use a hammer drill into brick to attach wires to what look almost like cup hooks, but are circular rather than leaving a way to slip off. These lead the vine up as it grows (you tie the stems in with twine or something longer lasting like smaller pieces of wire, rather than plastic).

As the vine gets bigger/taller, you can add further wires, possibly stretching out horizontally (or in a fan pattern from the wall eyes with occasional bits woven in to hold thick vines and spread the leaves out) into fence posts or garden walls. This means that you're not building a massive pergola or hard structure, you're guiding the vine in a way that doesn't negatively affect wildlife, there's no netting to catch birds and visually, it's just wire instead of big old posts across your patio. With a lot of heat and sun, the vine will spread quickly, increasing shade and providing a lovely spot for birds to skip along, picking off bugs whilst you benefit from the leaves absorbing lots of heat before it hits the house - and no reflective bifold film that birds fly into and break their necks on because reflecting the sky makes them think they aren't about to hurtle headfirst into solid glass and die.

At some point you'll probably want to find out what you're actually supposed to be doing (like trimming some of the grapes that might form so you are more likely to get an edible bunch) or just how to use vine leaves in cooking - which is easy peasy. But getting it growing up and in the direction you want is the first job.

Alternative is accidentally drop a bit of ivy from a bouquet down the side of the house behind a water butt when taking the bins out, not look down there for a couple of years and then realise you've got an amazing, cooling, long lasting wildlife habitat and late summer-autumn food source expanding over your house that your neighbours will absolutely lose their shit over because there might be spiders in it. <cough> Life is probably less complex if you have a vine instead.

Did you have to tension them somehow/install mountings? I'd love some sails but not sure how to put them in

Blind down all day. Open window first thing and late. No oven just air fryer or cold meals.

Yes they came with hooks and links. B&Q. We attached two links to house wall and bought the pole to fix to our deck and that is where the third point connects to. It’s still boiling in kitchen though as sun on garden 1pm- sunset.

Our last one was, plus an awning, bliss!

Here are two of are ours (photo pending), from Kookaburra. They’re attached to ropes with carabiners on the end, and there are fixtures on the fence. Every year when the weather heats up we just get them out, attach and drop them out the upstairs window into the garden and clip them onto the fences.
I can’t remember how DH has fixed them upstairs but in the beginning I think we had them on ropes tied to some furniture in that back room 😀 Now we’re able to close the windows so he’s rigged up something else. The higher you can get them at one end the better the angle for low sun.

I just try avoiding using the oven as much as possible. I’ve invested in a JML air cooler which is really good. DD seizures are sometimes triggered when she walks into the kitchen when it’s hot. So it was really essential I got something.

I also have a west facing kitchen diner which suffers from intense heat.

I have another problem with outdoor solutions as I am on a slightly elevated position. The wind is gusty and am concerned that awnings and sails would be battered. For example, opening the one rear door of the bifold gets blown open or shut unless pinned back.

Does anyone else have this problem? Thank you.

What direction does the wind come from most on a blustery day? You can angle it so that it 'cuts through' the wind rather than being battered by it - and make sure there's a gap for wind to escape instead of it meeting a solid wall and pushing up.

We have an awning, which goes out first thing.

I also use a a room divider screen from Amazon, like these, stood in front of a big window in my house which stops the sun's brightness: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decorative-Double-Sided-Partition-Non-Woven-0011-z-c/dp/B01MCZ0AK5/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis?ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f

Keep the windows closed when sun is scorching down, and only open them once the sun's gone away.

We use a fan at each end of the kitchen to move the air around.

Cook in a bikini, if you must cook.

But if you do cook, consider having an outdoor kitchen. We have now bought a Weber electric BBQ, which also works as an oven, and we have put it on an old table outside in a shady spot - and I do all food prep outside, just popping in and out of the house to get bits from the fridge.

Hope those tips help.

Thankyou!! I’m quite fond of spiders so that’s fine ;) thanks again for taking the time.

Ok, I have seen something which might work, would be cheap and temporary but require a bit of DIY. Caravan awning rail screwed into the external wall above the windows and a caravan porch awning.

An awning or an external roller blind (cheaper) is the only option.

Maybe I'm a selfish neighbour, but I just see it as payback for across the road shining their security light into DDs bedroom at all hours 😅

https://www.wayfair.com/outdoor/pdp/latitude-run-10x65-ft-aluminum-cantilever-market-non-solar-tilt-half-patio-umbrella-360-rot-wind-resistant-w119612413.html?piid=813037978

A cheap instant fix is a large rectangular tilting umbrella. I have one on my patio and it can be almost vertical, like a wall to block the sun.
My living room has two walls of glass but a wider roof and blinds that are closed even when the floor to ceiling windows are open.

I saw something about people painting their windows over the summer, I am sure it was thinned down yogurt then washing it off after

Similar to the grape vine solution we have planted a hop plat, it scrambles up a net creating shade and then died back in the autum so you can just cut it down and compost it, the net is just a cheap twine thing that can be composted as well. Whrn the hop fruits you do get a hoppy, brewery type smell

The smell of hops is one of those things that splits people. I can't stand it at all, but some love it.