Frosting

I feel like we lucked out with the lot our home is on: While we're at the end of a cul-de-sac, we have a greenbelt in back and on one side, and the neighboring house is set in such a way that we have pretty much total backyard privacy. In fact, you can only see our neighbor's house from one window: My some-day sewing room.

I don't know how familiar you all are with sewing clothing, but when you're making it for yourself... well, there's a lot of off and on. And you know what's not great when you need to change your clothes 5,000 times? Neighbors and an open window.

Winner: Etched Glass, bottom left.

Enter Artscape window film. I'd heard about how easy it is to use on a few blogs I read (like this one), and it pretty much was. But first, to the Home Depot display to choose my 'design' (pic above). Next, facing the installation...

Installation ingredients.

The instructions were a single sheet - woot! - and pretty much consisted of cutting the film to the size of the window, spraying the window down with water mixed with a little dish soap, and squeegeeing (is that a word?) out the air bubbles.

Cutting was fairly simple: I measured (a lot), then lightly marked the paper backing with a pencil and snipped as smoothly as possible with scissors. Then, just as the instructions mandated: Peel, spray, stick, squeegee.

Finished product!

My trouble came when I realized that my film wasn't quite long enough to do both windows, so I had to switch it up and do two large pieces on the bottom 3/4 of each glass pane, and two small pieces for the 1/4 left up top. Luckily the line is pretty subtle, and with my window decoration it is nearly invisible.

Same view, before and after.

The light is hardly different from the window with the blinds up, yet the view in is totally obscured: Perfect! I can't get over how much more open the room feels without those dark horizontal lines always being in the way.

Before, during, after.

With the price ranging from $20-$45 per box (depending on design - they have some elaborate ones), and ease of installation, what's there to lose? A pretty low price to pay on all fronts for a little extra privacy.

Update: The day after installation I was unhappily surprised to find a bunch of tiny air bubbles had formed. I squeegeed again to no avail, but the next day they had disappeared completely, leaving the film smooth and perfect. So if that happens to you, don't despair! Just wait another 24 hours.
Also, I find the seam is even less visible now that the film has fully cured and dried. Hooray!