Reply #17: a few ideas we've tried over the years....

[politicat]

Our back door has glass in the upper half, and it's right next to the laundry machines, so if we need to run to the machines to get something in the morning, the neighborhood gets a peek. So we found mulberry paper at one of the craft stores (it's a heavy, translucent tissue paper) and glued it into the window frame on the glass. (It is a mullioned window, so we did alternating squares of a red and cream.) It was very pretty and we replaced the paper every 6 months or so when it got sun-faded. We used a paper glue and it came off with a spritz of water and a scraper.

ETA: We did the same thing with a kitchen window at my great-grandfather's house. Each morning when he was having breakfast, the sun got him right in the eyes and made it hard for him to eat, but he liked that spot because he could look out the other kitchen window and see how the farm was doing. So we glued a thin wrapping material rather like interfacing (we got it at Meijers) used for wedding presents (it had a delicate silver bell pattern on it) on the offending window, leaving the bottom half uncovered. It was the perfect sun diffuser - let the light in without blinding anyone.

We have cats, so miniblinds are right out - they will either bang up the slats or hang themselves on the cords. We have matchstick bamboo blinds on most of the windows; they're good for privacy (I can see out, but people can't see in) and the cats can't kill them. On the other windows, I got Redishades from Lowes (they're folded paper with clips) and stapled them to the top of the window. When the shades are beaten up (every year or so) I pull them off the wall and replace. They run $6 and I like the way the light comes in through the paper far better than through blinds. I considered real paper blinds, but I'll still have to replace them every year, so the Redishades won.

In one apartment, I tacked sheer fabric over the window and painted designs on it with craft paint. The window looked out on the parking lot, and I wanted privacy, light and a screen from the sheer ugliness of the world outside. I used thriftstore sheers and celtic stencils, and it looked very nice. Trim the fabric to the window size plus 1 inch in all dimensions. It also kept cat out of window, because while I was allowed to have her, there were some dogs that roamed the neighborhood and she would have gone through the glass to kill them.

We covered a set of the matchstick blinds with red velvet and bound the edges with black gaffer's tape to darken our bedroom. I ended up having to use spray adhesive to get the velvet to stay in place, but they look really nice and keep the morning light and the street light out of my eyes.

I made my living room curtains out of used banquet tablecloths that I found at a restaurant resale shop. The cloths were 90x90 and a little faded. A run through a black dyebath (the LR is in grey, black, cream and red) restored the color and all I needed was rods and supports.

My sister covered a couple of windows in her kitchen with vintage aprons - she opened the seam ends on the ties, scrunched the aprons onto a cafe rod, and hung them. They're wild aprons, and go perfectly with her very vintage kitchen.