I’m directing this primarily at folk who live in houses/apartments where the living room faces the street.
When you are home in the evenings, do you keep your living/front room window covering open, or do you close them? I’ve noticed on my street that approximately 2/3 of the houses draw the blinds. In our old town - 3 suburbs over - we noticed that a majority of folk seemed to leave their blinds open.
We tend to keep ours open. I don’t really care if anyone sees me sitting there reading, or making music. And I prefer the sense of connection with the outside, and the feeling of openness as opposed to being inside an enclosed box.
We have the semi-sheer white window coverings (not really drapes or curtains, are they?) over the front room window which let in light and do a decent job of obscuring the room from the outside. At night, when the room is lit from within, you can see someone who is up near the window but not someone sitting on the couch. Since none of us dance naked next to the front room window, that’s good enough for privacy.
Edit: Guess they’re just called curtains. I thought of curtains as more opaque but then I don’t watch the home improvement/decorating shows.
IME, those are called “sheers.” Some folk have both sheers and thicker curtains/draperies. I probably should have added that option to the poll, but I would personally consider yours “closed”.
We don’t live by a street where people can peer in. As a result, we have no curtains at all, including in our bedroom, which has a lot of glass doors and windows. Although I’m quite comfortable living in a fish bowl in my situation, I think I would be the kind of person that closes up the curtains if I lived on a normal street.
My huge front picture window has roman blinds and decorative sheers but I never close them. Unless I’m trying to watch TV in the afternoon and the sun is making it impossible.
My house is 100’ from the street, and I’m never doing anything untoward in my front room, if I’m there at all. No need for privacy really.
I walk my neighborhood every day with my dogs, and every house has a big front window, 100’ from the street. It’s rare that I am able to see inside. If anything, I can see televisions and that’s about it.
We have a window shade that is only pulled down on Halloween night or when the sun is shining thru the window - it faces west, so normally when we’re watching the evening news. We sit a ways back from the road and the front yard rises up a bit to obscure most of the house, so if we were inclined to dance nekkid, it’s doubtful that anyone would see.
We only keep one curtain in our bedroom closed - the window facing the neighbor’s house. Unless you’re actually in the yard, and we’re standing in just the right place, you probably won’t see us in the bedroom, nekkid or not. The lots in our neighborhood are 3 acres or more, so I picked boonies.
For the sake of this poll, I voted closed. We have sheers with opaque curtains over them (but pulled to the side). We can see the outside, but it obscures the outside view in. However, in the Spring we tend to open a window and push the curtains aside altogether. I don’t really care if people can see in, our heavier curtains are more to keep the heat in during winter.
We live in a Chicago suburb, on a quiet street. House is probably 50’ from the street, 30’ from the sidewalk. Not much vehicular/pedestrian traffic other than 15 minute periods at 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. for the middle school down the street. At night, if lights are on inside, it is very easy for a pedestrian to see inside the house.
I live in a dense Chicago neighborhood, and my front room* is about ten feet from the street, on the second floor. Lots of foot traffic, and I like to watch it, so the curtains stay open. Nobody ever bothers to glance up to see inside, and even if they did, all they would see is the ceiling.
*Front Room, great Chicago term! Sometimes pronounced “frunchroom”
We’re about 50’ off the street except our little patch of Chicago suburbia is technically unincorporated we don’t have curbs, sidewalks or street lamps. There’s very little night time pedestrian traffic so no reason to worry about idle wanderers.
No coverings on the front room - It’s a large bay window, and my dogs love to sit in it - window coverings would simply get torn away. Plus, the visual of 300# of dogs sitting in the window looking out on the world does wonders for my home security situation.
Edit:
Mostly, we use the front room for combination workout room and office space.
I’m on the second floor, but my next door neighbor can touch my front window as he walks by on the landing. So I have the blinds adjusted so one outside can only see the ceiling, but light still comes in.
I also grew up in the “front room” linguistic zone, so I have a davenport in there.
Haha! Davenport! I haven’t heard that in a long time, either. From my great- grandmother. I think she was from the midwest somewhere. I’m gonna start using it.
I have blinds on my front windows which we adjust to open, but don’t always pull up to full open. When it gets dark out we close them all the way.
We bought our house because it has these beautiful big windows in the front. I can’t imagine never opening the blinds.
I would love to open the front blinds but my son claimed the front room as his bedroom and he likes them closed.
If he would open the blinds and keep the pocket doors open the front and middle rooms get a lot of sunlight.
I’d probably close them at night though, we live just inside the town limits and there is a lot of foot traffic on my street.
