Privacy Please

When we moved apartments, we changed which side of the building our bedroom was facing. In the old apartment, we faced the front of the building and had a street view. We had several big palm trees that grew close to the window and added some privacy and a little noise protection. Now, we're in the back of the building. It's much quieter and our room doesn't get quite as bright early in the morning- both pluses. The downside of this new room is the proximity of our windows to others' windows. As in, we could probably reach out our window and touch the house next to us (if we didn't have screens... and if we were creepy like that). Anyway, we positioned our bed with the least visibility (we hope) from the windows. We kept the shades down at night and pulled them up during the day, figuring we could always look the other way and pretend no one's there if we were in our room at the same time the neighbors were in their room.

Well, a couple weeks into our new bedroom, we noticed that our neighbor didn't quite have the same idea. One day I walked into our bedroom in the middle of the day saw Ms. Neighbor sleeping next door, in her bed pulled up right to the window, with her window open and no curtains. Can we say awkward turkey?!

awkward turkey, via

Well, I immediately pulled down the icky shade and we kind of left it like that for a while. Then Mr. Henry, in his effort to catch a bug (or just be mean) scratched the shade. It was ugly anyway, but he had just made it 10X uglier. 

Luckily Nick agreed and we decided to hang some of the curtains we had in our old apartment. We hung floor length sheer IKEA curtains, that we had purchased for maybe $12 a couple years ago. We made sure Ms. Neighbor wasn't snoozing away as Nick balanced precariously on a chair to hang the rod.

The curtains did the trick! Now we have privacy from Sleeping Beauty and we can still let in lots of light during the day, since the curtains aren't opaque. 

Next up, the other windows in the room need curtains hung as well. The unit next to us has been recently occupied and our windows are at a 90-degree angle with her living room windows. Nick, who checked out the visibility from her apartment, says you can't really see too much into our room. Nonetheless, privacy on all sides would be ideal.