How to Make an Accordion-Type Room Divider

How to Make an Accordion-Type Room Divider

How to Make an Accordion-Type Room Divider

The trickiest part of creating a first accordion-style room divider for your house is trying to find salvaged parts. You will need at least three, but up to six or eight, slender cast-off wood shutters or doors. The hardware that makes the “accordion” is that the hinge — and it’s worth hunting through a variety of weekend flea markets, architectural salvage depots, country antique stores and even curbside renovation garbage for distinctive hinges that still work. When you have your raw materials, assembly is easy.

Wipe down the scrawny French doors or the bank of tall shutters. Attempt to dislodge the dirt without scraping off all the old crazed paint if you are lucky enough to have scored some shabbily chic castoffs.

Eliminate the hardware and sand any really rough or splintery stains. When the shutters are in good shape and you would like the charm old, distress them by banging, scraping and denting the wood with chains, screwdrivers, a hammer and other blunt objects. Sand the edges and the areas where hands could have grasped the framework to open and open the door or shutter. Stop frequently to evaluate so that you don’t overdo it.

Spray distressed shutters with clear polyurethane — matte finish shows the “age” over a glossy shine. The end will glue chipping paint in position and enables you to wash your divider using a quick dust-off, without losing more fragile old paint.

Lay the shutters or doors flat on the floor of the work space against a single straight board that functions as a straightedge. The divider needs to be on the bottom so it’ll be stable. The top does not matter.

Place 1 hinge between 2 shutters around a foot up from the bottom, and another about one foot from the top. Play around with them until you want the positions. Then mark the spots over the 2 shutters and swirl a sharp pencil at the hinge holes so that you’ll know where to drill.

Measure the marks to the first pair of hinges; jump a joint between doors or shutters, and place the rest of the hinges on every other pair of panels, following those measurements. Mark the holes for drilling on every single one. You jump alternate hinge locations on one side so you can place those hinges on the other side of the shutters or doors and bend the divider panels flat.

Drill holes for the hinges, and screw the hinges to the fireplace. After you’ve completed one side, turn the shutters above, lining them up from the opposite order — place the shutter from the far left of the lineup on the correct and realign them out from right to left.

Mark the areas to the hinges on the shutters that aren’t attached, and drill and screw the hinges to the shutters. Alternating the hinges from side to side makes it effortless to bend the shutters like an accordion-folded bit of paper.

Harness furniture glides to both outer bottom edges of a three-panel divider. Put the protective glides on every other panel, making sure to incorporate both external edges, for a divider with several panels.

Stand the divider in angle and place the hinged panels slightly to your configuration that looks best in your space. Fold the hinged panels with each other to open the place or to move the divider somewhere else.

hily1970