Stop Looking At Me Swan...

Using the guest bath used to be only for the bold and brave.  Because of this big beautiful old window RIGHT NEXT TO the hot seat, doing your dirty work meant a little over sharing with anyone in our backyard. :) 

But thanks to a roll of window frosting film, picked up at Lowes, we got it covered now! :) Guests can do their business incognito. Haha. As it should be! 

This stuff is pretty simple to use and does a really nice job.  It doesn't take an expert to get good results and there's practically nothing to it supplies-wise.  You don't need fancy squeegees or window spray to apply a film like this.  All the same goes for window tinting too.  All you need is: 

1.) A plastic/credit card

2.) A soft, thin rag - like an old t-shirt 

3.) A spray bottle

4.) A drop of mild liquid soap - like baby shampoo or dish soap

5.) VERY SHARP exacto knife - a dull one will rip your film

6.) Window Film

Here's the frosting film we used. It's from Lowes and probably cost somewhere around $20.00 and there's a TON. You can do a few windows with this, I'm guessing. 

To start, you clean your window really well. DON'T USE A RAG THAT LEAVES FIBERS ON THE WINDOW.  Towels are the worst for that.  The fibers, dirt, etc will create lifted pockets under your film so your window wont look like good quality.  

Step 2 is to mix your drop of soap in with warm water in a spray bottle.  Then, prepare your "squeegee" by wrapping your old t-shirt rag around a credit card.  The rag helps keep the cards sharper edges from tearing the film and the flexibility of the card means you can easily press it up onto the window tint and squeeze out your adhering liquid.  

Step 3: Next, there are two different methods for cutting your film to size.  It just depends on your personal preference.  One is to cut your film to be roughly the size of the window you will be covering, maybe slightly larger on each side and then use the "squeegee" (read - c.card wrapped in a t-shirt) to press the film up to the edge of the window and trim off the excess.  Method #2 is to measure your window and cut the film pretty much exactly to size before applying it to the window.  Trim as necessary.  

Step 4: Spray your window with your soap/water mixture. SPRAY LIBERALLY.  Remove the backing from your film and place your film onto the window.  As long as the liquid is on the window you will be able to slide the film around into place easily.

Step 5: Once with film is pretty much where you want it, begin squeegeeing the water out from the center of the film towards the edges.  This allows the film to adhere to the window.  

Step 6: Trim excess film as necessary by carefully using the exacto knife to get as close to the window frame as possible.  Here you can see that we have VERY OLD WINDOWS with lots of uneven paint edges.  We just worked patiently to cut as close to uneven paint as possible. 

 Our window had 6 panes of glass, which meant we cut six pieces of film, instead of one large one.  On one of our panes of glass we even had a crack. Like I said about fibers causing puffy pockets under your film, a crack will do the same. So we very carefully took our exacto and cut along the crack.  This meant both parts of the window film would lay flat up to the crack. 

 Here's our crack a little more up close and personal. :) haha. 

So, if that was a confusing explanation then allow me to introduce you to the amazing John & Sherry Petersik  of Young House Love.  In this post you see photos of how they filmed their window.  And here's a great how to video play by play for window frosting. :) Happy weekend!