This is me. I have crystals and stained glass sun catchers in all the windows so I love to have the light come in. At night I want them closed. When I first moved in I had lace curtains in the living and dining rooms. Then one night I looked up to see a man standing on my porch looking in the window at me so I bought blinds I could lower at night.
Makes sense. I have male privilege; it’s not one of those things that I’ve been given reason to be worried aobut personally. (It sucks that anyone has to worry about it personally, yecch!)
Yeah, similar. No curtains, only blinds and I’m in a multi-floor condo complex.
The solid blinds in the bedroom I use as a ‘study’ are closed 95% of the time for privacy and to keep down glare on the computer screen. The window faces a public walkway and is right in front of my front door. Same with my kitchen window.
But in the bedroom I use as a bedroom they are open 98% of the time. It’s a nice water view, I’m on the third floor on a steep hillside with no direct back-facing windows across the way so privacy isn’t really a concern and I am completely light insensitive. Decades of varying shift work has rendered me perfectly capable of sleeping in everything from complete darkness to direct sunlight. Sunrise hasn’t woken me up for many, many years.
In my sun room/living room, 90% open for the same reasons and they are also gauzy instead of solid. I really only close them if it is really hot.
I voted other. My reason: to reduce how much darkness leaks into my house.
Yeah, yeah, intellectually I know this is nonsense. Light radiates, darkness doesn’t. But that’s how it feels to me when there’s an expanse of glass, you have the lights on inside, and the outside world is dark: the darkness is trying to flow into your house.
Secondarily for privacy, to keep those outside from being able to watch us whenever they please. The family directly across the street NEVER close their curtains/shades as far as I can tell. Looking from my living room across the street into theirs feels rather like I am looking at a stage. Actors enter, move around, interact, each action fully lit so the audience can follow what is occurring. I don’t know how they stand it.
I never open my curtains.
My apartment is on the ground floor. I don’t want people in the parking lot looking in. Also, I collect many things. Sunlight fades collectibles. I have a Japanese plush Freddy Krueger (I bought it because it was odd and very cheap). He was clearly in somebody’s window for a long time. His front is faded and the colors on his back are vibrant.
We’re on the ground floor. We have honeycomb blinds on most of the windows, except our living room which has floor length shears and curtains. In the bedrooms we also have curtains, as we bought them first, and then we bought honeycomb blinds, as they can be left open at the top to let in light and still maintain privacy.
In the summer we close the living room curtains, plus the outdoor blinds, to keep out the sun. The living room faces south and it can get pretty warm.
Yes. This means for the bedroom windows, we have outdoor horizontal blinds (came with the building, standard for Switzerland), indoor honeycomb blinds and curtains. Probably a bit excessive.
And there’s one more thing. Noise. Our apartment is cement block with wood flooring throughout the living room, dining room and foyer. Serious echo when we first moved here. The curtains in the living room really help.
Having been peeped at via gaps in curtains, my blinds and curtains are usually closed. In my office, where I spend most of my time. I have blinds, and pieces of fabric over the lower halves of the windows, so that if someone tries to look through the blinds when they are closed, they can only see the ceiling.
One episode happened near a college campus. A young man was standing outside the dining room window, coughing at times. I was studying at the dining room table. I realized he could see in. I got up and went to my room, trying to figure out what to do. (pre cell phone days). I got really mad that this guy was scaring me. So I walked into the dining room to the window, jerked the curtain open, exposing him, and yelled “You get the Hell out of here!” He ran off. Don’t know if it was related, but a month later, I was out of town, and someone broke into the apartment and raped my roommate, and choked her to the point all the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes broke. We both moved out of that apartment.
This! (Blinds, in my case, but same thing.) Closed, all the time. (I don’t always wear clothing when at home…)
So, your ideal house would have no windows at all?
What about the sun? The sun is coming through our window at 5am in summer, that’s not the time we want to be waking up.
Our dogs wake me up at 5 am seven days a week.
These days, the only curtain that stays closed is the one in our bedroom that faces the neighbor’s house. It’s partly for privacy. tho I can’t imagine he’s at all interested in watching senior citizens getting ready for bed. Mostly it’s because he keeps the light over the door on and it shines in our room. And on the rare occasions when our granddaughter spends the night, I close the curtain in her room, also against light.
We’ll pull the blinds in the living room around sunset - they face west and during half of the year, the setting sun shines right on the recliners where we watch the evening news. If my husband wants to sleep in, he’ll close the east-facing window coverings to block the morning sun.
But mostly, we let in as much natural light as possible.
The curtains and blinds are rarely open here. My daughter and I are very light sensitive, and the view from several windows is a wide expanse of tan hills and relentless, clear sky. The contrast between walls and windows kills me.
The kitchen blind is always open because that window is small. The blind gets extra dirty being above the sink. I’m actually taking that down this weekend–it’s been a pain since I bought this place 11 years ago.
The crowd that would gather to gaze upon my Adonis-type body would pose a hazard.
Then the OP probably intended that you (and those like you) not get to play…
(vertical blinds here, which I never touch.)
Basically this. And some windows don’t have them.
We’re set back far from the road and considerably away from nearest neighbors, so someone would have to make an effort to peer in. And if voyeurs come skulking around, Pluto the Watch-Spaniel will alert us.*
*During a recent TV showing of “The Invisible Man”, Pluto started reacting during a scary scene, going over near a window, looking out and growling, with hair standing up on his neck. I checked it out but there was nothing outside, so maybe he just saw a disturbing reflection in the glass.
I hope.
OP here. I haven’t voted yet. I am quite surprised of the very few (just one?) votes for “for the protection of people outside.” I have given up on modesty many years ago. Any valuable personal property in this apartment is hidden from view. It really doesn’t matter to me personally if anyone looks inside or not. But I am often in my natural state in here. There are young adults that live nearby. If they see what fate awaits them when they grow old they may become psychologically damaged or even lose the will to live. I close the curtains for their sake.
I voted other - I don’t want the nosey folks passing by on the street peering in, and when I’m exercising there’s nobody who needs to see me flailing round the living room like a completely unhinged person.
To keep light out in the morning while I sleep.
Hmm, I sometimes like peeking outside, to check the weather or see if somebody’s walking up to the house. (Currently I do this by using a handy pen to pull open a space in the Venetian blinds to peek through.) Of course an eight-inch square glass panel behind a wooden cover would serve for that, with few or none of the downsides of a full-sized window.
Beyond that, I do like the idea of fire exits in every major room. But given my druthers they’d just be bolted wooden doors that are just obtrusive enough to remind you not to put bookshelves in front of them. Maybe put the peephole panels in them too.