Since our bedroom is at the front of our house, with a door that leads directly to the front yard and two windows that look out onto the side yard and our neighbor’s house, I’ve been thinking a lot about privacy. Of course we need privacy in a bedroom. But when it comes to areas that need to be private, I always run into the same problem. I love natural light and I hate blocking out natural light. So how do you create privacy without blocking out natural light?
In the rest of our house – the “non-private” areas – I never close the blinds. Our windows in our living room remain open 24/7. I think maybe this way I can prevent a break-in. A potential burglar can look in our windows, see that there’s nothing there worth stealing, and then move on. But it’s also a hassle to open and close the blinds, so I leave them open all the time.
But of course a bedroom needs privacy. So I spent weeks thinking about what I would do to our windows and the door in our bedroom. All three will have velvet curtains, which is quite a thick fabric. They also have white lining so they look white on the outside. I know I’ve shown this a thousand times lately, but just a reminder: this is the overall impression I’m going for…
In some rooms in our house (living room, breakfast room) we have lined top-down/bottom-up blinds. Since our breakfast room was our temporary bedroom during the time I was working on our bedroom suite, these shades were pretty amazing. I like the sun shining through the windows in the morning as the sun rises, so the top down feature is perfect. It allows the sunlight to stream into the room early in the morning while offering us a lot of privacy as the lined part remains closed at the bottom.
This is the same shade I have on the window of my walk-in closet and I almost always keep it in the top-down position so I have natural light and privacy. The only time I open it from the bottom up is when I’m doing laundry there.
But in other rooms (my studio, my pantry, my master bathroom, and my bedroom) I have these shades (affiliate link). I love these shades so much. They are much cheaper than the lined top-down/bottom-up parasols because they only open in one direction and are not lined. They do offer some privacy, but sunlight also comes through them in the morning, so I know they don’t offer 100% privacy.
And while I used to have these on all three windows in the bedroom, now I only have them on the two windows and the door is completely see-through and offers no privacy at all. (Sorry for the older photo. I don’t have any updated photos yet.)
In any case, I don’t want to put a shadow on the door. I’m just not a “shadow at the door.” But I also don’t want to put privacy film on the door because I really like being able to see out the door when I want. Maybe I’ll opt for privacy film in the future, but for now I want to see if we can do without it.
So I thought about my options and here is my decision. I will be using a layered approach so I have options depending on how much light we want in the room at any given time. Here’s what I mean.
I’ll keep the blinds on the side windows. And then I’m going to reuse the sheer curtains that I used here when the space was a home gym.
I loved these curtains so much. Although they let in light, they are not quite as transparent. They are thicker than sheer curtains while still looking flowy, airy and somewhat sheer. When I took everything from the gym back home, they were too nice to get rid of, so I kept them in hopes of finding another use for them. And I just have the right number of panels.
So I bought double curtain rods for the windows and door. I can’t even remember the last time I used double rods (if ever) or the last time I layered with curtains (if ever), so this is new territory for me.
It took me a while to find exactly what I wanted, but I finally settled on this curtain rod (affiliate link). I really liked the brackets, I especially liked that the bars are not adjustable.
This curtain rod is very similar to the one I have in the studio. And although I like it much better in the studio, it didn’t come in a double bar. But that’s a close second.
Like I said, it’s not an adjustable bar, which I really like. Instead, the longer poles (like this 8 foot pole I bought for the door) have the pieces screwed together in the middle.
So for the door, the velvet curtains will each be 1 1/2 fabric widths so I can actually close the curtains at night for privacy.
And on the windows, I think the combination of blinds and sheer curtains is enough to create privacy while still letting in some sunlight in the morning. This room is the brightest room in the house early in the morning, so I really hope this works out.
We’ll see how it works out, but I love the idea of reusing these sheer curtains. I also like the idea of adding some white to the upper parts of the walls so it doesn’t look too teal on the upper walls. I think a few white sheer curtains will add some much-needed brightness to the walls to break up all the teal. So I hope it works out the way I imagined.
I still didn’t get the whole cut done on Tuesday. POOH!!! I’m stuck in an endless loop of working on trim day after day. But I’m almost done. I keep reminding myself of this end goal to stay focused. And I focus not only on the end goal, but also on short-term goals. Once all the trim pieces are painted, all dusty and dirty projects are done. And once that’s done, I plan to reward myself by bringing the rug and nightstands. I don’t want to bring in too much because I still have to hang the grasscloth wallpaper, but if I can just see a few things in place it will motivate me. That’s why I keep my eye on both this short-term goal and the ultimate reward of a beautiful, finished bedroom.
