I'm in New Mexico, a sunny state, but we still experience temperatures sub-optimal for orchids. Once the night temps hit 55F, they are out of the house. Most of mine are cattleya light lovers. The large green paphs, phrags, cattleyas, and mule ear oncidiums are outside, the mottled leaf paphs and phals stay in a window inside.
I had a "shade house" made out of a dog kennel, but the neighbors (our tenants) needed the kennel because their dog kept jumping the fence, and so I am stuck with a table now. It's under a tree, so they get waving shade. I am making a shade cloth frame like you have with PVC as we speak, but that won't really be needed till summer.
I try to keep my collection fairly small-- about 50 orchids. And I try to keep them within the same "care groups" so what I do to one will be good for all of them.
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