One of the most striking things about living in the Netherlands (to foreigners or expats) is that the Dutch leave their windows without curtains or blinds to cover themselves, or their homes, up. I heard that it was a demonstations to prove that people had nothing to hide, so passer-byers can easily walk by and take a peek into nearly every Dutch home. And the funniest part is that we're not talking tiny windows that are not at eye-level, we're talking HUGE floor to ceiling windows similar to those you'd find in a store front!
Even though I love Dutch design, I'm a bit more modest and, to be honest, feel like I want to hide a lot of what goes on in my house (most important the constant mess!). Having said that I do have something to hide, we have these lovely eye-level windows in the front of our house that we've been trying to address for a while now. There is a great recycle store here in Rotterdam, called Studio Hergebruik, and in their window I saw the solution: Esther X's Raamtekens. They look like semi-transparent figure-8's, and can be linked together to either create a room divider, or a window screen, just like we were looking for. In the past we've used this horrible foggy-looking cling film to cover the bottom of the windows so people can't see in, but this is a much more stylish and eco-friendly solution (they're made from recycled advertising signs). The toughest part for us was deciding which color/pattern to choose from (there are MANY!) and now we're working on the design part that will fit our window. So far, so good - we'll post pictures once you can't see in the house!!!
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