If you have a window, or even more than one, in your home that is overlooked by neighbours or by people passing on the street, then you will probably feel that you do not have enough privacy. It is important to be able to let sunlight into your house to keep it cheerful and homely. However, few people are sufficient exhibitionists that they want to have strangers looking directly into their home with nothing in the windows to prevent them. What are the stylish methods that today's interior designers recommend for providing better levels of privacy?

Shutters

Internal shutters are a great way to keep out prying eyes whilst not shutting out all of the sunlight. The best ones to opt for have two sets of partitions, lower and upper. Therefore, you can cut off the bottom two-thirds of your window, which will stop people from looking in — unless they happen to be very tall that is! However, the top third of your window, the part that gets the most sunlight, remains fully exposed. With high-quality, designer internal shutters, you can also have louvres fitted, which means that you can regulate light flow depending on the time of day.

Venetian Blinds

Although roller blinds do a perfectly good job of stopping people looking in, they descend from the top of a window, which means that they cut out all of the available sunlight if they are to be effective at providing privacy. Instead, you should opt for slatted Venetian blinds. These are ideal for preventing prying eyes from being able to look in directly. All you need to do is to adjust the position of the slats by twisting the controller handle to add more privacy. By rotating the slats towards a more vertical position, it becomes harder to look in from outside. Lightly coloured slats or those made from metals like aluminium will still reflect plenty of light into your room.

Smart Gazing

These days, there is a high-tech solution to the problem of insufficient privacy that looks good, too. You can replace your existing glazing with something that is usually referred to as smart glass. In effect, this is a tinted window which you cannot see through from outside. However, unlike conventional tinting, smart glazing can be turned into a transparent sheet of glass at the flip of a switch. You often see this sort of glazing in offices and conference centres nowadays to create temporary partitions. Nevertheless, it is a technology also perfectly suited to domestic window units.

Speak to an interior designer to learn more about types of blinds that will increase your home's privacy.