I have been working bit by bit on the rowhouse bathroom and plan to post a blog about it soon, but jumping ahead a bit, I wanted to show off the “etched” privacy window I made this weekend. The plexiglass in the bathroom window had a small scratch in it that I decided to cover up with translucent scrapbook paper.

I feel like there’s a special name for this paper but I can’t think of it. It’s translucent, with a white design. I got it at Michaels. (It’s on a red book in this photo so you can see the design.) The design is a bit larger than I wanted but this was my only option. I moved the window around on the paper a bit until I found a segment I liked.

Then I cut it out and slipped it in behind the plexiglass. You can still faintly see the scratch (it’s at the top of the flower, just to left of center – more obvious in person than in the photo). But it gets the job done.

Here it is from the inside. Since the window is right over the tub, it makes sense that the bottom would be frosted.

Once I saw this on the house I wished I’d done this with all the windows, but most are glued in already. I thought I could do it with the circular windows that go on the stair wall. I’d considered stained glass for those, but this would be way easier…

And then I thought, why not the front door? It’s always seemed weird to me that the door has two huge windows that you can look right through (isn’t that a security concern, or at least a privacy concern?!) Turns out the same section I used for the bathroom window fit nicely on the door panel.

It took quite a bit of futzing to get these right. (In fact, I burned through all the available flowers and had to go back to Michaels for another few pieces of paper!) There was plenty of space around the edges of the window for me to slip the paper in, but I had to kind of tease it in and any bend or crumble turned into a visible white spot on the paper

Right, so about that missing porch light. Months ago I broke the porch light to the left of the door — the skinny arm that holds the fixture to the base snapped, so that the two pieces were only held together by the wire inside the arm. I fixed it with super glue a few times but each time it came loose again the integrity was worse and finally it snapped off completely. I tried to pull more wire through the hole, hoping I could attach a new light to it, but it wouldn’t budge (not surprising, since there’s wallpaper glued over it).

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