How "obscure" do you want? Are you looking for distortion, but you can still see out (and in) the window; or are you looking to totally block the view thru the glass, but still allow light to enter the room?

For the SDL's the glass surface needs to be reasonably smooth. That means that the textured surface of the obscure glass will often be inside the IG unit depending on the pattern used. Whether the pattern is inside or outside the IGU does change the look of the pattern obviously.

The most commonly used obscure glass (likely the one you really don't like) is also known as pattern 62 and its an example where the textured surface would be between the panes when built into an IGU that will include surface mounted muntin bars in an SDL (mullion is actually the vertical piece that separates where two windows are joined together to make a larger "mulled" unit, the terms are very commonly confused).

If you aren't necessarily sold on surface textured glass there are other alternatives such as acid etch that can achieve "obscurity" as well.

If you like rain and glue chip, you might also like seedy. I'm not certain, but I believe that seedy can be used with SDL bars and it fits really nicely with the Craftsman/A&C style. It's not as "obscure" as rain, but probably more so than glue chip depending on what you are looking for specifically.

Ha. Yeah, I know the difference between muntins and mullions ... but it was late. Shouldn't write things late.

Marvin has a few options that look like they're etched (Frost, Sandblasted). I don't really like those. Couldn't say why, exactly.

I found some images of Seedy. It does look interesting, though there's a wide variety in the images on the web. But as far as I can tell, it's not a "standard" option for Marvin and I don't see myself wanting to go so far as getting custom glass and shipping it to them. Some of the examples are also minimally obscuring.

Your point about obscurity is a good one, a good check for me. This window faces an enclosed backyard and is 36" from floor level. I feel like we can afford to not be completely obscure. (And if someone else ends up being uncomfortable with the obscurity, they can always add a window treatment.)

I found something called Delta Frost which looked interesting but then this scared me off:

I hate the repeating pattern.

Looking around at more Aqualite-ish glasses, I suspect that's out, too. The Marvin sample looks nice but most other pictures of similar glasses I don't like. There's not enough variation in the pattern. And the Marvin sample is too small to really know what it looks like larger.

Anyone know if the Marvin Glue Chip is "really" Glue Chip? I'm not necessarily concerned with how it's manufactured, whether it's "true" or "faux", but I would like the randomness that comes from "real" Glue Chip. I'd really rather not see a repeating pattern if it's a faux treatment. At least that I can go by and see: the distributor is supposed to have a sample.

Thanks again for all opinions.

I went and looked at Glue Chip at the distributor yesterday and it seemed like the best among my choices.

Marvin won't make any comments about repeating but the folks at the distributor said every piece was different which would imply it wasn't a mould.

So some risk but I guess I can't do any better.

flemish vs rain for 3- 58x 36 bath windows?

i like rain

thanx....i like both so hard to decide but maybe rain is more contemporary vs flemish is more traditional

I think rain has a more subtle look for a window, and I don't disagree that rain does feel more contemporary

Thank you for the comments. I do like rain and both seem to let similar amount of light thru.I was worries rain would be a tad darker. But i think since its 3 parger windows that the rain will look better as the flemish may repeat the swirls too uniformly..cant tell in a small wondow but in larger sometimes patterns can be seen repeating

@aptosca Finding your thread years later but curious what you ended up going with and how you've liked it so far? I'm in the same position as you where we need to choose Marvin privacy glass for a bathroom window, want some obscurity but also some natural light, and we don't really love any of the options available. Thanks!

@renamiso: we went with Glue Chip and are very happy with the result. It doesn't have a noticeable repeating pattern (though, as you can see from our drawings, our visible panes aren't particularly big). It's what we would pick again. I prefer it over Rain now, even if I could get that with SDL: I like that it doesn't have the vertical directionality that Rain has. Glue Chip is plenty obscure for us and I think it fits our Craftsman style better than the options (though I'd be hard pressed to say why ...)