By Gene and Katie Hamilton

Clear glass in a door lets you see and enjoy what's happening outside, but it can have a downside too. Sometimes it's a patio door glass that lets in too much sunlight, which can damage furnishings. Or maybe it's a basement or back door, or sidelights of the entrance door that don't allow privacy.

To create privacy you can cover the glass with a curtain, shade or blind, but that can look like an afterthought and can involve a dangling cord. An alternative is to add an enclosed door glass treatment designed for a standard 8-foot door or half-door and that fits over a raised or flat frame. The enclosed treatment has a shade or blind sealed between tempered safety glass operated by a touch button on the side of the unit to raise the shade or tilt the blinds. We found them at the manufacturer's site www.odl.com, where there's also information about finding a distributor and how to install the unit.

A carpenter will charge $165 to install a 20- by 36-inch enclosed door glass blind window, which includes labor and material, on a typical exterior door. You can buy the unit for $95 and install it yourself, saving 42 percent.

Now you know the average cost to install an enclosed doorglass blind, which includes the labor and material, and what’s involved, so you can decide to do it yourself or hire a contractor. Don’t forget to adjust the cost to where you live by adding your ZIP Code.

Improvement and Repair Cost Updated 2018

The cost and time data is generated by averaging labor and material data from annually updated cost books used by contractors and refined by the authors' experience remodeling 13 houses. They are authors of 20 home improvement books and Do It Yourself or Not, a weekly column syndicated by Tribune Content Agency. The national cost can be adjusted by ZIP Code.