Why buy a house with huge windows - and then swathe them in blinds?

So MOnica, what exactly is your problem? Why does it bother you so much what people are doing in their own homes that have no impact on you personally? Is it perhaps that you objected to these homes being built and now you are peed off that the owners are not trying to fit in by having window dressings that you feel are unsuitable? It’s like asking ‘why live in a house with a garden if you don’t enjoy gardening’. The answer is ‘because I can and it doesn’t effect anyone else’.

MOnica

But that particular estate is just an example of a general phenomena, which puzzles me, if you very concerned about privacy, just buy a house with smaller windows.

You speak of people's need for privacy as if it were a bad character trait!

Surely most people at some point value privacy in their own home for various reasons, which shouldn't really need to be explained.

Perhaps they like to look out at the view but not have random strangers watching them. So blinds make perfect sense.

I used to work as a temp in London and many offices had huge floor to ceiling windows (almost) but all had blinds because on a practical level unfiltered sunlight through plate glass windows is extremely uncomfortable during the summer and the intense light can make it very difficult to focus on a computer screen - or even on white paper. And the same applies to the home environment. Plus if, like me, you have lots of houseplants, they often need shading from direct sunlight in the middle of the day otherwise the leaves get scorched and the compost dries out too quickly.

The beauty of blinds is that you can choose - to let in more light in the winter, and shield yourself from its intensity during the summer. All whilst enjoying the view.

It's not paranoid to want privacy - and remembering all the people who've stuck their noses to my pavement windows, there's good reason to maintain a bit of it from the idle curiosity of some individuals. My partner has to have a dressing on his arm changed regularly and, because he's disabled and finds it difficult to move around the house, I mostly do it while he's sitting at his desk or in an arm chair. This involves him taking off his shirt, and I'm quite thankful that I can close the blinds when I do it and not have people gawping at him. I just don't get why you think - or appear to think - there's something wrong in being 'concerned' about privacy. A home is, after all, your private space.

It really isn’t only about privacy MOnica, as I hope the replies have shown. I don’t need to have privacy from the horses in the fields behind but I do need some shelter from the glaring sun as it moves round. Blinds can be opened or pulled up when not needed!

We have big windows in our apartment. We are on the 1st floor and our living room looks out at the front grounds and the road and path.
We get full sun in the morning till about 12 and winter and summer we have to pull down the blind otherwise we would be squinting.
Then it goes round to the back of the flats and even in the winter it’s really warm, so we pull the blinds down in the kitchen.

If a house has heavy curtaining or close shutters this can be noticed from a considerable distance and it is also possible notice windows that do not have it.

I go past the estate at 50 mph atba distance of a couple of hundred feet, so do no more than glance at the houses. However it is a large and very new estate so I travel past it for some time. I certainly cannot see into any of the houses, draped or undraped,

But that particular estate is just an example of a general phenomena, which puzzles me, if you very concerned about privacy, just buy a house with smaller windows.

'They are completely unoverlooked from anywhere' yet you can see what they have as window dressings. Maybe they're protecting their privacy from you.

Glass is wonderful for letting light in but completely awful when it's dark. I have glass across the back of my house. Before I had vertical blinds I just had to look at an expanse of darkness once dusk arrived - not very inviting.

Glass is also a good conductor of heat so when it's cold the best way to keep the heat in a room is to put a layer of insulating material between the glass and the room - curtains, blinds, shutters etc - particularly useful now with much higher energy prices

Josieann

JaneJudge

it shouldn't be empty, it is his prime residence apparently --during lockdown--

I'm guessing the little boy is at school in London, Gordon probably filming in America?! Maybe the young adults are hidden away inside having a rave or two?

that really made me cackle

JaneJudge

it shouldn't be empty, it is his prime residence apparently --during lockdown--

I'm guessing the little boy is at school in London, Gordon probably filming in America?! Maybe the young adults are hidden away inside having a rave or two?

Yes, our Venetian blinds are tilted and appear closed from the outside but the angle means that we can see out perfectly - but those dropping off and picking up from the nursery opposite don't stand and stare in our windows. We didn't need anything before the nursery was given planning consent in this residential area (25 children in one through-room????!!!) but sadly our privacy is now lost. I don't like net curtains and the angled blinds also make the lovely sunlight visible but not too bright!

it shouldn't be empty, it is his prime residence apparently during lockdown

When I moved into my old house I didn't close the curtains as there was just a field of horses who could see in. Then my neighbour mentioned that there was a peeping tom in the area so I always closed the curtains at night after that.

I've just walked past Gordon Ramsay's (probably) empty house. Huge windows, no curtains, but the glass looked like it had a coloured film so people couldn't see in. The view from the windows is stunning, so why cover them up?

One dark night I was sitting at the computer and had that feeling that someone was watching me - I looked out of the window to see a fox in the front garden, lit by a streetlight. He stared at me and I stared at him then he loped off.

MawtheMerrier

BlueBelle

As we become a more insular and isolated species the nets become blinds, the blinds become steel shutters that we sit behind on our phones trying to communicate with the world from inside our bolted doors making sure no one ‘pops in’ or sings or whistles

You know what?
You've got a point!
Too much Groansnet these days

Rage against it at every opportunity, that’s what I say ?

I'm amazed at the number of people who relate incidents of passers-by peering in through their windows.

I have an office and sitting room facing directly on to the pavement - there's no frontage - and the number of individuals who put their noses to the glass, shading their eyes the better to see - just astounds me!

There's nothing special about my house apart from the fact it's a Grade II listed building built from Cotswold Stone - but all the houses in my street look like mine to some degree and they all look like Listed buildings. These are not tourists who are frequent visitors in Summer, but locals.

I once visited a nearby village renown for its outstanding charm. Many of the houses are ancient - some Jacobean - with steeply pitched gables, mullioned windows, etc, and sometimes the artefacts on display in the windows are fascinating - it would only be a step to peer in and look inside but I could never bring myself to do that because it feels deeply intrusive. Who are these ill-mannered individuals who can't curb their idle curiosity? Flippin' 'eck, I don't even stare at people passing outside for more than a couple of seconds because it seems rude and makes me feel uncomfortable... and they don't even know I can see them!

... no wonder people put blinds / curtains up at their windows...

Presumably, either they bought the house because they liked its layout or the district, but did not care for the huge windows.

Or it may have been the only house they could afford.

I would hate to live in a house with huge windows and the first thing I would do if I had to live in such a house would be to install blinds or curtains.

One of my nosey neighbours keeps asking me when we are going to do something about the garden. Meaning that she feels we neglect it.

I told her politely at first that we had bought the house because we liked it, not because it has the garden that it has and that neither of us enjoy gardening.

Now I have stopped being polite and just ask her to mind her own business - with or without a well known adjective in front depending on how much she has riled me.

The more you can afford the more likely you are to be burgled! If you've got lots of gear worth nicking you're not going to leave it on show when you're out!! Shame really that some people can't keep their filthy hands off others'stuff isn't it?

No nets, no blinds at our front bay windows. We have a lovely view over the valley. Some of our neighbours wave if they see us, but never stare in the windows. The postman always waves to me. I love being connected with the outside world.

Kim19

Just thinking, if I have enough people looking in at my 'valuables' there might be some donations left at the door!

We've always been so behind the times with electrical goods like phones and PCs and TVs (nothing is ever replaced until it has to be) that we used to joke that if we ever got burgled the burglar would probably take pity on us and leave us a little something ?

why? because they choose to!

Standing at the bus stop each day I have a fine view into bedroom windows of the adjacent new block of townhouses and can see who's made the bed or not! I feel like posting some adverts for blinds or nets through their doors

If we did not have shutters or house is then like a goldfish bowl. Before we had them I had to keep the curtains partially drawn. Our house is 1930s in a narrow road so without the shutters the people across the road can see straight in our front rooms. Added to that the passers by. All very well in the summer when all the shrubs in the front garden block the few (at least from the road but not upstairs to the neighbours). Net curtains are awful and added to that my cats would just destroy them. I say yes to shutters and more and more people are installing them down our road.

I have a huge picture window in my living room in my bungalow. I have to have blinds because of people passing and looking in. An odd time I give them a little wave when they are really having a really good nosey. My patio doors at the back let the sun in so I needed blinds to stop my sofa fading, but I really missed looking out at the garden so I ended up last summer putting a canopy outside over the doors that I can let out when it's really sunny, plus it's great for the dog who loves lying on the steps at the doors.

Well, each to his own really. We are all different. I've got large patio doors with vertical blinds, plus curtains which I close in the evening. All my windows have blinds or curtains. I just don't like people looking in. And it helps to keep the heat in.