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If you own a ground-floor apartment or rent one out to tenants, it’s important to consider the practical realities of living in that space. Of course, there are some benefits to enjoying ground floor space. It means that the person living there is going to have more than one way to evacuate the apartment in the event of a fire, and that’s always a good thing.
However, it’s also true to state, especially in the middle of a city or suburban environment, that privacy can be hard to achieve when everything you own and do is inside an apartment other people walk past. This is especially true if you have almost no front or back courtyard or garden, meaning that people walking past on the street could look almost directly into your place of residence without meaning to.
It’s also important to remember that ground-floor apartments deserve to enjoy natural light. This means that a careful balance between lighting and privacy must be had. In the following post, we’ll discuss some excellent means of achieving such a result.
How to Find Privacy In A Ground-Floor Apartment
Window Shutters
With bespoke window shutters and blinds, you can more easily ensure light transmits through the day. Only those who look through the blinds directly, with their window pressed to the glass, will be able to make out a minute angle into the room. That, of course, is very unlikely.
On top of this, the light, shining down through the slats, will illuminate the space with natural light in the best possible way. But rather than implementing cheap blinds, we’d recommend installing bespoke window shutters that can be fit capably to even strangely angled window shapes – this can be ideal if your apartment is in the middle of a city environment, where densely packed buildings can lead to odd development angles.
These high-quality shutters last a long time, can be maintained, are cleaned easily, and in the long run raise the decorative strength of the space in question. Furthermore, you can open or shut these to the appropriate degree you wish for.
Blackout Curtains
Blackout curtains can be utilized on any window with a curtain pole, of course, but they can also be placed over your shutters or blinds if you wish them to be. This can help you restrict any of the light from coming in at all, even the small amount from your shutters when they’re closed.
Alternatively, if you opt for a different underneath measure, like frosted glass, then you can use this to stop any lights from outside from disturbing your sleep during the night. Blackout curtains are often made from thick material and will be a darker colour to absorb light and prevent any from outside from making its way through.
They’re easy to clean when you need them, can be fit to the window, and will serve as a temporary stop-gap measure once you wait for your underside application to be installed.
Frosted Glass
As mentioned above, frosted glass can be a good way of getting both benefits, light and privacy. The price you pay for this is not being able to see in or out of the window at all, even if you wanted to.
Now, frosted glass can be its own installation, often found in bathroom windows, but can be fitted to any size. It’s a bold aesthetic choice, however, so you must be sure you wish for it. However, it’s also true to say that there’s a compromise to be made here. Layers of applicable frosted sheets can also work well here. The film on the underside will need to be applied to a clean window, and then a leveller will need to be gently applied from the underside up to remove any air bubbles.
This way, you can ensure the window is frosted without any necessary renovations, or this can avoid annoying your landlord if you’re a tenant seeking some additional privacy. Frosted glass will also provide almost no block of the natural light shining through because while it impedes visibility, the near-translucent aesthetic will allow the full light in. This means the ground-floor apartment never has to look dark or uninviting.
Muslin Curtains
Muslin curtains material is thinner than that you’ll find in blackout curtains, but they can look very decorative and pretty to install. The benefit of muslin is that they allow a good amount of natural light into the property, but when placed inside a window that will also be slightly reflective, rarely anyone can see in. However, because of the brightness outside, you’ll be able to see outside quite easily.
In addition to this, you can also choose the colour of your muslin curtains for the best results. Often, a lighter purple can provide the best balance between natural light, privacy, and being able to see outside. But yellows, greens, blues, and even whites can work also.
One thing to keep in mind is that at night when lights are on and you might be watching television, people will be able to see through the curtains at your illuminated interior. This is why it’s wise to add some blackout curtains on top, so you can easily close these at night for utmost privacy when natural light is no longer available due to that pesky orbit of our planet.
Exterior Installations
If you have any control over your exterior, small measures can help. A wooden fence around your small courtyard could help prevent people walking past from seeing into the house more easily.
A treeline or hedgerow can also provide this. While it might not be the sole measure you use, it can’t hurt to see the benefit of it. In the long run, it should allow you to implement a better system of decisions to ensure you feel safe, protected, and enjoy your own private space.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily find your privacy in a ground-floor apartment, and benefit as a result.
