Are net curtains dated and ugly?

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

Not very exciting, but just wondered what the general opinion is of net curtains..
Our house is on a fairly busy street so I have net curtains at the front. I took them down to wash them today and am quite tempted to bin them.
Do you still have nets? do you love them? Or do you think they're ugly and old fashioned?
Is there a modern alternative that I don't know about?

Voile isn't shiny!

We face a busy street so have very plain voile curtains on a curtain rod behind our blinds. I'm not a fan of lacy nets as I prefer a less fussy look but to dismiss them as 'so lower middle class' is pure snobbery. Nothing wrong with being any class!

I have nets, but I think I am lower middle class and probably a bit frumpy, so at least judgemental people can categorise me from looking at my house without needing to see me. But tbh I don't really get why people are so snotty about nets - they are just bits of white fabric, not particularly lovely but they just serve their purpose pretty well.

My street is quite busy and I feel more relaxed in my home knowing that people can't see in. I also feel safer because burglars can't easily see if someone's in or whether we have anything of value. You also can't easily see with nets whether the curtains behind are closed in the evening whereas with venetian blinds it's easy to tell people are out if the blinds are open after dark. I don't think frosting allows you to see out (?) which to me is a disadvantage. Nets are also cheaper and easier to clean than blinds. If you hate them, get rid of them, but not because other people dislike them.

Do people still use net curtains? If u want privacy then get blinds. We have vertical blinds or wooden blinds in all rooms

That was meant to be a joke yes?

You can buy sheer roller blinds from John Lewis or dunelm which look much neater than nets and let in more light than Venetians.

The problem with nets/sheers/muslins/voiles is that if you put a light on you can still see in from outside.

I can see my neighbour in his ensuite through frosted glass, clear pink outline so am sure they can see into my bedroom from their other windows. I have tried French lace panels, IKEA lill (the plain panels) IKEA patterned ones with the lacy edges (they didn't last a week, horrible things) and am now back to none at all.

Downstairs we have Venetian blinds because we get people trying to force us to have the drive jetwashed, taken up and re-laid, the house rendered and various other things and they all peer through the windows, so only open the blinds slightly in the middle and not at all at the edges, we have 7 windows, semi circular bay which is a pain so just don't open the side blinds.

Always closed when we are out, and a light always on unless it is daylight.

The one beauty of nets over blinds is you take em down, shove them in the washing machine, quick tumble and there back up. Cleaning blinds is a right faff.

Nets/voile/sheer fabric whatever you want to call them look fine as long as they are clean. If you are a filthy minger and/or a heavy smoker the whole street will know

I took down my nets voile to wash and discovered that the tree in my front garden had grown big enough to give me privacy, and the tree was much more attractive than the nets...sorry I mean voile....

They didn't go back up.

We have the plastic blinds, easier to find the right size and needed them quickly, wood ones would have needed cutting.
I have a long 'feather' duster (not made of feathers but very soft) which is for cleaning blinds. Unless you use lots of greasy things/sprays or smoke they don't get really dirty, just dusty.
They do the job and while I would like Plantation shutters our windows are the wrong shape.

But the disadvantage of nets is that while you have them down for washing, people can SEE into your home and can actually SEE what goes on behind those mysterious nets (you dirty devils)

previously you need normal curtains as well as nets - nets stop people looking in during the day, then you close the curtains when the lights are on. I think you live in my street as I have a constant stream of driveway resurfacers, house renderers and fascia/window replacers queueing up at my door too (I'm in the house with the dirty nets )

Those window films are brilliant.
My nets voiles are going.

Hubby hates net, so we just have curtains in all rooms bar the kitchen, where we have blinds. It does my head in when the curtains in the living room are left open once it's dark though. I hate hate hate the thought that someone could be watching from the outside because I'm batshit crazy a very private person.

I've never had nets, awful dirty looking things
We have nice blinds, live on a quiet cul de sac and not overlooked though...

Sorry, I'm not a fan of net curtains either. What is good, is that there are so many other options if you don't want them. I'd go with blinds. www.blindsinabox.co.uk/ (as seen on Dragon's Den) offer really simple ones, which simply stick on with tape.