Home improvement project #764

With the emergence of Spring came the feeling that a few things in the house needed to be cleaned out, refreshed, re-done.

This year we have decided to take on a few very intense home improvement projects (including new kitchen counter tops, appliances, and floors) as well as a few very difficult outdoor projects (a few of which have already been started). I'll try and share the progress along the way.

However, just the other day I got the "spring itch" and just needed to do SOMETHING to the house. So I decided to re-do the windows on and around my front door. Here is the before picture. I almost forgot to take it and as you can see I had already begun to scrape the old fake-stained-glass from the bottom two window panes when the pic was taken.


Scraping in progress:


And here are the tools of my trade:


I did the fake-stained-glass on the windows maybe 7 or 8 years ago. I hated the fact that people could look right inside the house from the street. It also freaked me out that as soon as someone came to the front porch, before they even knocked on the door or rang the doorbell, they would put their faces up to the glass and peek inside. On more than a few occasions I nearly jumped out of my skin as I was going down the stairs and saw a strange face looking in my window. I wanted a bit of privacy but I didn't want to ruin the window frames by putting up curtains. So, a trip to the craft store and off I went fake-stain-glassing. At the time I thought it turned out OK and it did provide the privacy I was looking for. However, over the years I grew to dislike it (not only for the tacky-ness factor, but also because it completely blocked all natural light from entering the windows).

Here is a shot after all the fake-satined-glass was removed. Ahhhh...natural light. It stayed this way for a few days as I pondered what I would do next and I ALMOST left it like this......until I remembered why I disliked the windows in the first place.


Another trip to the craft store and this is the final product. The entire project cost UNDER $3.00 (hooray for 50% off coupons from Michael's!) I really like how it turned out. It looks more sophisticated and lets in a bit more natural light while at the same time hampering the efforts of any would-be peekers in the future.



Next up: Before and afters of the backyard projects.