Custom cushions for Arizona homes, from Tucson casitas to Flagstaff porches

One hundred seventy hot days below, 203 freezing nights above

Arizona is two climates stacked on top of each other, and a cushion has to know which floor it lives on.

Down low, Phoenix counts 170 days a year at 90°F (32°C) or above and Tucson 148. June afternoons in both cities average 12 to 13% humidity, and both get 85% of their possible sunshine.

Then climb. Prescott sits at 5,319 ft, and Flagstaff at about 7,000 ft on the western edge of the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in the continental United States. Flagstaff has 203 days at or below freezing, 90.1 in (229 cm) of snow, and just 4 days a year at 90°F. Its freezes usually come back at the end of September and hang on into early June.

Altitude doesn't spare fabric. UV rises about 10% for every 3,281 ft (1,000 m), and Flagstaff still gets 76% of its possible sunshine. The monsoon ties the two halves together: Tucson gets about 40% of its 10.61 in of rain in July and August, and Flagstaff gets 5.65 in of its 20.52 in in the same two months.

So low-desert cushions fight sun and heat. High-country cushions fight sun and snow.

Casitas, ramadas, Sonoran row houses and Victorian porches

The page on the desert Southwest covers pools, bancos and monsoon storage. Here I want the rooms where Arizona families actually sit after dark.

The casita, Spanish for "little house", is the small guest house out back, with its own door and often a courtyard between it and the main house. Its daybed becomes the bed for visiting grandparents, so it needs a seat you can sleep on. See daybed cushions and the daybed cover measuring pattern.

The ramada is older than any of us: four legs, a roof, no walls, built for shade where summer days pass 110°F. A bench or daybed under one gets shade but still sees heat, dust and blowing rain. The Arizona room is its screened cousin, a covered patio closed in with screens. Before air conditioning, families slept in them on summer nights for the cool air.

In Tucson, the Sonoran row houses of Barrio Viejo are plain adobe, packed close together since the 1800s, and burnt-adobe ranch houses from the 1950s and 1960s spread across big desert lots. Up north, Prescott has more than 700 buildings on the National Register, Victorians among them, and Flagstaff's Townsite has homes from the late 1800s. That's where the porch swing comes back.

Where does your family end up at 9 o'clock on a July night, neighbor: the casita, the ramada or the Arizona room?

Adobe tones down low, painted Victorians up high

Desert rooms take their colors from the ground: burnt-adobe brown, sand, saguaro green, a turquoise door. Our photo shows what works under a desert sun: an ochre and white outdoor print on a rattan daybed, a cactus beside it and terracotta cups on the tray. Warm mid-tones like ochre and mustard go easy on dust and slow fading.

Up in the pines, the palette follows the painted Victorians and the cabins: forest green, barn red, navy, cream ticking on a white swing. Ponderosa shade in summer and snow glare in winter both count there, so anything on the porch goes in outdoor fabric, and the indoor colors can be chosen for long winter afternoons.

Browse outdoor fabric for the ramada and the swing, linen and cotton-linen for the casita, where dry air keeps natural fibers crisp, and porch swing cushions for Prescott and Flagstaff.