Keeping Things Private

I'm not the most modest person you'll ever meet.  If there is a load of clean laundry on top of the dryer and I need a pair of jeans, a shirt, etc, I've been known to dart quickly through the house half naked to get them.  You can ask my college roomies.  Some of them were not too fond of this maneuver.  That being said, I am not an exhibitionist.  So after Seth and I removed the plantation shutters on the windows in our master bathroom, we needed to figure out a new way to maintain our privacy.  The neighbors behind us aren't that close, but I can definitely see their windows so I'm sure they can see ours.

I'm not a plantation shutter hater.  When they are made of quality materials, they can be very classy. I do not like the fake plastic ones (we had those in our old house and they were promptly removed). The problem with these in our master bathroom was twofold.  One - they had been improperly painted and were no longer functional.  In fact, the slats were stuck at various angles (you can kind of tell in the photo above - I'm sorry I don't have a better pic).  Two - they were painted cream and when we had all of our trim painted white, there was really no way to salvage them.  

We deliberated options like 1) new plantation shutters, 2) cafe curtains (they cover the bottom half of the window only letting in light from above), and 3) frosting the windows.  Number three was the winner.  We used this tutorial and this window film (it can also be found at Home Depot).  

before

We started this at night and so my before picture is horrible.  I will be a better blogger during the next project.  

progress

After completing only four panes we were tired and frustrated so we called it quits for the night.  FYI - applying the film is much easier with two people.  I was able to get you better pictures in the daylight though.

after

We fully intended to cover all of the panes, but I was sad that I wasn't going to be able to see the trees in our backyard anymore so we left it like this for now.  Don't worry - only my head is visible above the frosted part.  And if the neighbors glimpse the top few inches of Seth's manly chest, that's okay.

  

I spent some time today using our new toy (an awesome compound miter saw) for a living room furniture project...stay tuned.  Why I decided to do this on the hottest day of the week I'm not sure. It was a steamy 97 degrees and I was sweating for sure.  That's DIY commitment, right?  Have a great weekend everyone!