What kind of window covering would be best on my kitchen window?

I can see in my kitchen window easily at night and I hate it.
I have a neighbor that puts her eyeball up to the crack in the fence. Lol
I had sheers there but am going to make stained glass folding ½ shutters as soon as I can decide on a pattern.
I think I would get something like pull down shades if I had a large bay window. My mom had that on each section of her window (flush)
They did offer privacy and were unobtrusive when pulled up

@lucillelucillelucille: I was considering honeycomb shades. I was thinking would it be better to have three different shades (one in each panel of the window), or one giant 70 inch wide one?

@jca2 – My mom had three separate shades that were flush with the window, which allowed her to put a flower arrangement on the window seat area.
I think they were a lightweight,honeycomb style.
I like that better than one large one.

If it helps, I told Auggie I was looking for new blinds to put on my sliding glass door. She talked me out of it, and told me to use regular curtains. She made me promise never to get blinds again, LOL! I put together something really unique, I think.
Never got a chance to show them to her, though. ;(

I’d put the curtains on rings so they slide easy.

Can we have a picture of the window and surrounding? It would help if we knew what we were looking at.

@Dutchess_III: I’ll take a photo tomorrow in the day light. How do I put a photo on Fluther? I can post it to FB but then the Jellies that are not on FB can’t see it.

One large shade will be heavy, if you can do it I would vote for three separate shades.

I put the top down/bottom up blinds in my living room and kitchen windows and I love them. You can adjust them anyway you like for the amount of light/privacy you want.

In the kitchen I prefer blinds. I feel like fabric absorbs kitchen smells. Even though I say that, I currently have curtains on the sliders in my kitchen nook. I like wood blinds, even the faux wood is fine.

If it’s a bay window can you reach the wand or strings to adjust the blinds on the middle window? I’m imagining the middle window is far away from where you stand at the sink.

I do really like the idea of the up and down shades that @janbb spoke of though. Especially, if the window is lower than 6’8”. When I lived in TN my windows were low and it was so odd for me. It felt like when I have a baseball cap on, like I couldn’t see everything. Add to it blinds gathering up at the top of the window and it really felt claustrophobic.

Shutters can be beautiful, but you can get a similar affect with the wood blinds. You can get shutters in 3” slats, and usually painted any color to match. Yo could match to your cabinets maybe.

My last home I match blinds to my wall paint color and I loved it. It wasn’t a “color match” but they had a color close enough that it was almost perfect. Since the light comes through it’s not the same as the wall even if you could do the color match.

@jca2, You have to send it.to.a photo sharing site place like Photobucket (which.has turned to crap) or Imgur and post it from there. I made an Imgur account a while back. If you want to send it to me on.Facebook I’ll post.it for.you

If you win the lottery, then you could have the windows replaced with one-way mirrors. ;-)

^^You can get one way mirror film to put on the windows. It’s pretty cheap. I assume it darkens the windows too though. I haven’t tried it, I don’t know how well it works. I have covered windows to make them opaque so no one can see in, and it worked great.

@JLeslie I think Brian was making a joke.

It’s a serious option though. If she hasn’t had coverings on the windows all these years, maybe she prefers not having window coverings, maybe it’s something to consider. My last house they put the wrong glass in my cabana bath door. I was choosing between curtains, blinds, or the film. For that situation I went with the film that makes the glass opaque. It’s cheaper than some sort of blinds most likely, unless she gets it professionally done. Im sure she wouldn’t want the opaque for this, but one way mirror film would allow her to still see out.

One way mirror film works for daytime, but if you are outside at night you can see in just fine as long as the lights are on.

@JLeslie @janbb

The winning the lottery part was a joke about how expensive I thought my suggestion might be, but if it was affordable, I thought it might be worthy of consideration.

I have some pics. This is the best one, IMO.

Also have this one and This one.

IMO, I think horizontal blinds would look best. (Sorry Auggie!)

Thank you @Dutchess_III for posting my photos!

Everyone, I sent @Dutchess_III the photos on FB and asked her to upload them to her Photobucket. I didn’t want to create a Photobucket account just for this occasion.

You can see the wall which is about 20 feet away and there are bushes on top of it. In nice weather, when there are leaves on the bushes, they help to obscure things. At the top of the hill, straight up, the dark square is a school bus shelter for the kids to sit in and wait for the bus. The neighbor walks his dog from right to left and back again about fifty feet up, sometimes on my property, sometimes on a path that is communal. I don’t mind him walking on the property.

Also, if he or his wife or guests are in his yard (behind his house or shed which you can see on the top right – the little tan shed, and his wood pile), then he can look straight down into my kitchen if it’s dark out. I feel self conscious when it’s dark outside the lights are on in the house.

You see on the bay window, I have some plants and some clutter.

I want to do something with the backsplash and replace the sink, but that’s not related to anything about the window treatment. I kind of feel like the poinsettia helps to obscure things too.

Some people may feel this is silly to feel self conscious about something like this, but it’s how I feel.

Oh, I see now! It took me a while to puzzle out what I was seeing. They are directly in front of your kitchen sink.

@Dutchess_III: Yes. Next to where I was standing when I took the photo is a peninsula. On the other side of that is the dining area (open concept, trendy before it was trendy LOL). So if he or his wife or anybody else is up there toward the top of the hill, they can look right down. As my mom would have called it, it’s like living in a fish bowl hahaha.

Another alternative would be a valance but that only is about 12–14 inches long. Or a valance in addition to a blind or shade, to hide it when it’s up.

An inside mount blind will mean you lose 2 inches of the window at the top, and if you raise the blinds to see out you lose even more, but you can just open the slits instead of raising them. It will be difficult to reach the thingy to open and close the blinds in the center window as I suspected, unless you get remote control expensive ones.

If the jelly above is right that the film doesn’t give you privacy at night then that’s really too bad, I think I would have liked that option. There are also films that have patterns that will disrupt the view, but you also won’t have a clear view anymore. It creates an etched glass pattern effect. Here’s a link https://www.homedepot.com/b/Window-Treatments-Window-Film/N-5yc1vZarc3

Have you gone to a window treatment store or Home Depot yet? Probably, a lot of houses in your area have similar windows and they’ll have useful suggestions.