7 Ways to Maximize the Element of Privacy in Your Home

Privacy is something many individuals and families crave. It can lead them to take all sorts of actions that they feel will allow them to not have as many prying eyes looking at them all the time. This becomes even more crucial in situations where your home is located in a neighborhood that’s very busy with passing cars or foot traffic.

Let’s talk about some ways you can make your home more private. Once you implement one of these ideas, or more than one, you might feel that you can relax much more when you’re in your house.

Install Roller Shades

First, we should make clear that these tips are for detached homes. If you live in an apartment, then what we’re suggesting will be impractical, or even impossible in some cases.

Installing shades that can block your windows is one way to go if privacy is your goal. You can get shades that roll down to block out your windows so that no one can see in. Roller shades come in lots of styles and colors. You might get some that match the rest of the decor in your living room or whatever other rooms you have with front-facing windows. 

Put Up a Stockade-Style Fence

You might also think about buying a fence if your front or back yard does not have one yet. Let’s say you have a decent-sized front and back yard. You know that your kids like to play in the back, and maybe you like to spend time gardening in the front as well.

You don’t want any of your neighbors looking at you or the rest of your family, not to mention strangers in passing cars or on bikes. Installing a fence is an obvious way to get more privacy.

Chain link fences are typically the cheapest option, but they add very little in the way of privacy. That’s why a stockade-style fence made of wood, or a synthetic material is usually a better option.

Though this choice gets you a lot of privacy, it’s usually not cheap. You might spend anywhere from $5K-$10K on such a project, depending on how big your yard is and what material you choose for the fence.  

Hang Curtains

Let’s go back inside the house for a moment. If you feel that installing window blinds is ugly or garish, then hanging curtains might prove to be a more elegant solution if privacy is your goal. 

Like window blinds, they are not usually all that expensive. What’s more, you can usually get them in many different styles and colors.

The one drawback with curtains is that you will have to wash them relatively frequently. That becomes even more the case if you have allergies, as dust and animal dander can cling to the material.  

Make Use of Creative Lighting

Sometimes, making use of lighting both inside and outside your home can be a way to create more privacy for you and your family. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to make areas like bedrooms more private. 

If you combine soft lighting with window blinds or curtains, you’re making it much more difficult for anyone outside your home to see into it. By contrast, strong lights illuminate any room and what you’re doing in it, so think about that when you’re engaged in any activity in such an environment. 

Plant a Privacy Hedge

Outside the home, you might want some additional privacy apart from the fence that you have installed. You may feel that a more natural divider between you and the street is the optimal way to go. 

If you plant a privacy hedge, that can serve as a way to partially or completely obscure what is happening inside the house. Like installing a fence, this project will not be cheap. A few thousand dollars is what it costs on average, though that price may go up or down depending on how simple or elaborate you want the plants or other bushes to be. 

You should also keep in mind that if you install a privacy hedge, you will need to trim it periodically. You can either do this yourself or hire a landscaping company to handle the task. 

Install Room Dividers or Screens

Maybe you are more interested in having more privacy inside each individual room in your home. That will probably be to your liking if you have guests over who are spending multiple days with you. 

If you want a relatively inexpensive way to make rooms more private, you can look into the many forms of screens or room dividers that are on the market. Most of them don’t cost all that much, and they can also be very ornate or elaborate. You might get some with an Asian motif if you feel that works with the rest of your existing decor. 

Rearrange the Furniture

Finally, rearranging the furniture can emerge as a viable option if you want to make certain rooms in your home more private. You might have tall bookcases or bulky couches or chairs that you can arrange in such a way that anyone who’s trying to see in will not have such an easy time of it. If you try a few different furniture combinations, you can usually come up with one that provides both privacy and an aesthetic that is pleasing to you. 

Often, where privacy is concerned, the best option is not one of these choices, but several. For instance, you might rework your home’s outside lighting, put up a privacy hedge in front of the house, and also install a stockade-style fence around the back yard. 

If you take on these home improvement projects one at a time, that makes the cost of absorbing them more endurable. You might do one costly project per year, like the fence installation or the privacy hedge. 

If you add to your family’s privacy piecemeal in this way, you should eventually reach a point where you all feel happy and secure.