You already know that you should protect yourself from overexposure to the sun to avoid skin damage or worse.

Same goes for what’s in your home. You may want to rethink your preferences for bright, sunny rooms.

Natural daylight is stronger and more damaging than artificial light, and the sun’s ultraviolet rays can fade and weaken artworks, textiles and furniture finishes.

“Virtually any organic material can be damaged by excessive daylight  especially the ultraviolet component of natural light,” said Steven Weintraub, a lighting consultant in New York.

Take precautions

You don’t have to dwell in darkness. Rather, take some precautions to control intense sunlight.

The first and easiest way to protect artworks, textiles and furnishings is to place objects of concern away from uncontrolled natural light. That might mean hanging paintings on a side wall instead of directly opposite a sunny window. Before arranging a room, spend a few days mapping out the pattern of natural light to learn the intensity of exposure in each area.

Another simple measure is to draw the curtains, pull down shades or close blinds when no one is using the room.

“The damage from light is cumulative, so if there are short periods of high exposure, it’s not so great a problem as continuous exposure,” Weintraub said.

Lighting specialists say most people prefer an evenly lit room and become uncomfortable in a setting with patches of brilliant sunlight and darkness and harsh shadows. If a portion of a room is lit brilliantly, the rest of the room seems much darker than it really is.

“The ideal solution is to have north-facing windows, which provide a diffuse or scattered light, instead of the blinding single-point light that comes through south, east and west-facing windows in most seasons of the year,” said Wendell Colson, vice president of research and development for Hunter Douglas Inc.

Working with layers

Relocating a window is rarely an option, so the next best solution is a window treatment that changes sharp daylight into diffused daylight. The view, which is what most people really love about natural daylight, does not have to be completely obscured if translucent fabric is used.

Combining two or more treatments is usually the most successful solution. Layered treatments provide more options because you can peel back one or more layers.

Sometimes the view is too spectacular to cover at all. In that case you might install exterior window shading devices such as awnings to control the light or have windows treated with a film that screens out ultraviolet rays.