Afternoon project - Frosting the Rear Door Glass

[kdarling]

THE IDEA:

I wanted to get a little more privacy from the rear, but without taking away either the extra light source, or the ability of someone inside to peek out.

SUPPLIES:

Spray and masking tape. I used Rustoleum frosted glass spray, but Krylon and others make it as well.

For laying out the see-through pattern, I got both 1/4" and 1/8" painter's masking tape, but ended up only using the thinner 1/8". Of course, I also had larger tape for around the window edges.

Frosted glass spray

frosted-tape.png (43.23 KiB) Viewed 1633 times

INSTRUCTIONS:

Basically, from inside the door you mask the window edges, and lay the pattern tape. Then, with the door open (because of the smell!) you spray in light coats. Don't worry if it seems blotchy while wet, it'll actually dry nicely to the same shade.

Important: LET IT DRY for a few hours before removing the tape.

I goofed up and removed the tape while it was all still wet, and now I'll have to go back and do some parts over since it also removed some of the frost by accident. I also failed to use a ruler to lay it out perfectly straight, and that's another reason to do it again. Fortunately, it should be easy to scrape it off with a razor and start again when the weather's nicer.

As for ideas, Google "frosted glass pattern". There's tons of neat ones you could do.

For myself, I made the main see-through "stripes" match the ones running horizontally across the door, and then added a vertical up and over loop matching the top door shape. This prevents people from easily seeing in from pedestrian level, but from the inside and higher we can easily see out from the increased open lines at the top.

[kdarling]

Since we can only include three images at a time, here is a direct shot, showing what NOT to do -- don't rush and make non-straight vertical mask lines, or peel them off too soon:

frosted-glass2.jpg (19.8 KiB) Viewed 1618 times

Woof. Even posting that, I'm embarassed. Oh well, it was good practice, and it can serve as a warning to others

Btw, here's a pattern I almost used from a frosted glass tutorial:

The only limit is your imagination. I bet some people can find a useful spray stencil at a Michael's or Joann's, as well.

[Manitou]

Nice, I like it! I keep the back black out shade handy, but I agree some light would be nice a lot of the time.