One of the things that we needed recently was a room divider to separate the old portion of the house and the new portion of the house.  I could not find a substantial tutorial for this project, so I’m making one!

We really loved this project because there are unlimited ways to customize it to fit your style!

Ladies, I did 90% of this project by myself.  You can do it, too!

Tools:

• Mitre Saw
• Table Saw (optional)
• Drill
• Work Table/Saw Horses
• Pocket Hole Jig (we used Kreg jig)
• Clamps
• Sander & Sandpaper (optional)

Materials:

• 2-1/2″ Coarse Pocket Hole screws
• 7 8′ 2×3 boards
• Stain/Polyurethane OR Paint
• Wood Filler
• Either lattice wood or 2×6 ripped into thin strips (to cover staples)
• Inexpensive drapes/fabric (we used VIVAN sheers from IKEA) or whatever center material you desire
• 4 Hinges

Aaron and I knew we’d be moving this room divider around fairly often, so we chose a lighter material for the center (fabric).  It adds privacy but still lets light through.  If we were going to leave this partition up permanently, we may have chosen another center material such as decorative wood or cool old metal.

To begin construction, I cut 6 13″ boards.  These will be your horizontal supports.  If you don’t have a mitre saw, this can easily be done with a circular saw or hand saw.  I sanded the edges a bit for a more “polished” look. Next, I used our Kreg Jig pocket hole kit to drill pocket holes to attach the horizontal boards to our vertical boards. I screwed the 2-1/2″ coarse screws in just enough to hold (but not enough to poke through the end of the board). At this point, I used the mitre saw to cut our vertical boards.  We wanted our room divider to be 7′ tall, so we cut the six remaining 8′ boards to 7′.  Again, I sanded the vertical boards for a more “polished” look.

I assembled the first panel on the saw horses by clamping the seams. I chose to do the top first. Since we already pre-drilled our screws, it is easy to just use your screwdriver to screw the 13″ (horizontal) board and the 7′ (vertical) boards together. When I arranged the bottom 13″ board, I placed it about 3″ from the bottom of the vertical board so we’d have “feet”. After the seams are clamped, screw them together (just like you did on the top)! Repeat for each of the three panels.  Fill your pocket holes with wood filler and let dry completely. Once all three are assembled, install your hinges. [I forgot to take photos]. The easiest way I can describe how to install the hinges is to (a) choose your center panel, (b) install hinges on one side with the pins facing forward, then (c) install hinges on the opposite side with the pins facing backward. You’ll be left with something that looks like this:

I then stained and sealed the wood. I chose to remove the hinges for this part, but you don’t have to.

Once the sealant was dry, I used my heavy-duty stapler to staple the IKEA sheer curtains into the wood.

After everything was stapled, I trimmed the excess. I wasn’t concerned about the look of my trimming because I knew I’d be covering the staples up with a thin strip of wood.

At this point, we priced out lattice wood (or thin strips of wood) to hide the staples.  We were flabbergasted at how expensive it was going to be (like… more than the frame wood and curtains put together).  We had a 2×6 in the “wood pile”, so we ripped 1/4″ thick pieces on the table saw, then stained and sealed them to match.  Detailed photos of the finished product are below.

So, after all of that work, here is the finished product:  

We think the DIY Folding Three-Panel Room Divider turned out pretty well. After all, you’ll never know if there are dirty dishes lurking in the sink. 😉

Thanks for stopping by!