For the Love of Shade

When we bought our house, there was a house across the street with lots of old, mature trees.  We didn't have any trees in our front yard, but we had lots of afternoon shade from the trees across the street.  Plus, we worked all day, so we weren't home until later in the day. 
Flash forward a few years and I'm working from home.  Suddenly I realize how much the burning, hot afternoon sun bakes our house in the summer.  Still, we have the trees across the street to provide some shade. Then the couple across the street sold their little house on the double-lot.  The contractor took down the house and removed most of the trees.  His plan was to divide the lot into two and build two houses.  Of course, he didn't get it started before the economy crashed.  The lots are still empty.
We planted a couple of trees in the front yard, which have provided some shade.  This last heatwave convinced us that we need at least one more tree in the front yard to provide strategic shade to our house.  No matter how hard our air conditioner worked, the temperature in our bedroom as always uncomfortable.  We slept in 90+ temperatures several nights in a row.
Obviously there are other issues, like perhaps a broken attic fan, but some shade on our windows would help a lot.  If we have less sunshine baking our windows, it has to be cooler inside, right?
If we had it to do over again, we'd plant a couple of trees in the front yard as soon as we moved into our house.  We didn't but we're catching up now.  We're about to plant our third tree in the front yard.  It's going to look a little crowded until the trees start to grown and separate a bit.  Once they get taller and provide some canopy shade, then we'll start to reap the benefits of our mini-forest.  It will take a while, but we know shade is coming.