No More Peeping Toms*

The property my house sits on is L-shaped, with neighbours on both sides. Both of the neighours have houses that are set further back than my house, so they have prime-views of the windows on the back side of the house. Before the neighbours to the left moved in, John and I went to look at the place with our realtor to see what they could see, and were happy that they really couldn't see much. The neighbour on the left side, who knows what they can see. Regardless, I never feel quite right leaving windows un-dressed, so as soon as we moved in, I installed blinds and curtains.

The sliding glass door into the back yard presented another problem, because it's really tall (89") and quite narrow (56"). I got some curtains installed, and they were quite delightfully oppressive in their light control. But you know, sometimes, I don't like living in a dark cave.

I installed some Gila Privacy Glass Film to the downstairs bathroom window last year, and had a ton of it left over, so it occurred to me to install some of that on the sliding glass doors. I didn't want to completely obstruct the ability to look outside, though, because then I'd have to OPEN THE DOOR when prowlers were about to verify that prowlers were indeed about, and the kitties would revolt because they could no longer watch the lizards crawl around the rock retaining wall in the backyard. All the windows in the house have a faux panes that divide the windows into several smaller panes. So I decided I would mimic that by cutting eight equally-sized blocks from the film, and applying those to the window, leaving a slight gap between each, creating a "pane." I figured each block should be 11.5" x 21" which would leave around 2/3" between blocks and frame--large enough to see out of when you're standing close to the door, but small enough that the neigbours wouldn't be able to make out much detail when looking through them. This is the first window:
And this is what both windows looked like, finished.
All in all, it was a very simple project, and I think it adds a lot of character. And now I'll be able to keep the curtains open without worrying that the neighbours are watching me do cart wheels in the kitchen (HAH!) AND I don't have to look at the u g l y backyard.

*I'm not saying the neighbours are Peeping Toms. I'm just saying that I felt vulnerable and exposed and paranoid that everyone was watching what I was doing.