"Frosting" a window for privacy

Happy Tuesday Y'all!! I hope everyone enjoyed a nice long holiday weekend.

We live in a new neighborhood with new construction. Our home sits on a corner and when we signed, the lots across the street from the side of our house were not even cleared yet! It was all trees. Fast forward a few months and the land was cleared, which was not so bad. After we closed and moved in the building started and we found out that a two story house would be built directly across from our house (on the side) and our upstairs master bedroom windows! The funny thing is this two story had a one story on either side..... Of course the two story would be right there....
Anyways, one is often half dressed while in your bedroom, or in the process of getting dressed. The windows in our room on that side are smaller and higher up, but the closet door is near one of them, so I would walk in front of it a lot. For months while it was being built I either left the blackout shade down, or I ducked.

Well, I finally decided to do something about it when I realized a family would be moving in soon! I could not decide what to do until I was browsing on a favorite blog of mine, Thrifty Decor Chick and came across a recent post that was all about her favorite projects. One of the projects used contact paper on a window for privacy! Perfect! I could easily do that, and if I did not like it, it was not much time or money lost.

Here is the view out my master window before adding film. My bed is (obviously) to the right and the closet is to the left. You can see by the picture, what is on my list for this room!

You can see directly in the house across the street. I walked through it a while ago to see what rooms were upstairs. From left to right; bedroom, bathroom, bedroom and bathroom. Not enough privacy for me......

Here is the after. The contact paper was just short of the window width, but it is very hard to tell unless you look at it from the side.

Much better!

In addition to my master bedroom windows I also had a bathroom window in the other bathroom upstairs that I wanted to add a little privacy to. It looks out to the sidewalk and our neighbors in front, and is right by the toilet. The boys are to small to be bothered by it, but when an adult stands or sits on the toilet, it is right there!

Keep reading if you want to know just how easy it is! Step by step follows with the window in the bathroom.

This is the bathroom window. (All the windows in our home have grids on the top portion and clear glass on the bottom portion).

First, clean your windows. It cleaned inside and outside (gotta love those tilt in windows for cleaning!)

Now, spray the cleaned and dry window liberally with water.

Now get your contact paper. I found mine at Home Depot for $8 for the roll.

Now here comes the part when you say, "uh oh!". I realized my window was wider than the contact paper - no matter how I held the paper. I don't have grids on the bottom portion of the window, so I could not line up with those.....

I decided to leave a seam towards the top part of the glass. I figured I would see how it turned out. I used my rotary cutter and mat and left a small overhang on one end, using the sides as top and bottom and the top against the left side of window. Then I stuck the side on and then unrolled while pressing.

It is easy to pick it up to move it if you have to because of the water on the glass. I was just careful to line up the edge I started with.

Next you take something to smooth the bubbles (and water) out. I used my Pampered Chef stone scraper. Anything will work, as long as it is not jagged. You don't want to rip your frosted glass!

Oh - put some towels on the window sill to catch all the water that will get pushed out!

When all the air bubbles are out, you are ready to trim the edge. I only had one edge to trim on this window. I used an exacto knife and cut very carefully with one pass. The pull then excess off slowly.

You might be done at this point. But I had to get the top portion with another strip of contact paper, using the same steps.

The seam is hardly noticeable unless you look really closely.

Could you see the seam on the last picture? It is hardly noticeable.

It is really a small thing, but will make a huge difference! I love it already in both locations. It lets just as much light in and I have privacy. I have walked around my house outside to see how it looks and you can't even notice that anything is there.

Best part is if I ever change my mind, I can just pull it off!

Thanks for reading and have a great short week (just think hump day is tomorrow!!!)