neighbors are coming : a little privacy please!

so, the house next door is in escrow! this is absolutely fantastic because when we first moved in, it had been foreclosed but the homeowners were still living there. and it was, to put it gently, a total dump. since then, it has been flipped by investors and put on the market.

anyway, the sliding door in the kitchen faces the house next door, and more specifically, directly into the two bedrooms (sorry for the dark photos, we did this little project at night!):

we hadn't put up curtains yet, because i always felt curtains would be weird here in the kitchen. plus, we really love how much nice sunlight we get in the kitchen, and didn't want to lose that. however, just with the real estate agent, new homebuyers and various inspectors stopping by the past few days, we knew we had to do something!

we wanted something that was a quick and temporary solution. we eventually want to put in a wood fence up against that chainlink (it's on the neighbors side, so we can't touch it) - probably with some tall plants for additional privacy - but don't have the time to do so before the neighbors would move in.

after a bit of thought, we decided to do the same thing we did to those bathroom windows when we first moved in. the artscape etched glass window film that we got from home depot last time was so easy to install, and has held up really well to the humidity and direct afternoon sunlight of the bathroom.

we bought the 36x72 roll, and it was perfect (we needed 66 inches total). we did a stretch across the middle, that lands just a bit above eye level. it took all of half an hour to measure, cut and install. and i think it looks great! and while it's a bit modern for our craftsman home, the whole kitchen is kind of modern and will eventually be redone with wood-framed french doors. a view from the outside:

we didn't block out the entire door because it is still nice to be able to see outside if necessary, plus sanford loves spending his afternoons looking out the door:

lookit that booty!

and who are we to deny him that pleasure?

we're composting!

we've talked about composting for quite awhile since i cook so often, and with fresh produce 99% of the time, as well as all the coffee we drink. well, after a lot of back and forth, and investigation, we finally committed! we bought this outdoor compost bin at home depot, and this simplehuman kitchen compost bin off amazon.

the outdoor bin assembled relatively easily, though because it's cheap-ish plastic with snap-together pieces, i did accidentally break a small chunk of it off - you can't even see it! i then gathered a bunch of fallen leaves and other scraps from around the yard to get us started:

our little kitchen compost pail fits nicely under the sink:

it's a decent size and i've been filling it with scraps and coffee grinds for the past week and a half now. it has a place for a carbon filter in the lid, so it doesn't smell at all (except when i open it to put more stuff in, of course). and the lid even has a little hook so you can let it hang without having to find a place to put it. i love the sturdiness of it, too.

anyway, that's all we've done so far, but we're officially composting! expect an update in a few months (or maybe even weeks, if things go well) with how it goes..