Decorating Guides

DIY Storage Shelves for a Room Divider

Well-positioned shelving can double as a space divider, enhancing design flaws and increasing storage requirements. Explore DIY notions using poles, windows, ladders or novels as the starting point for half-wall or full-height layouts. Safety is optimal; build a tall divider only if you’re able to properly secure it to joists or even a neighboring wall to keep it from toppling.

Boxed in

Wood crates, particularly vintage crates, such as old apple poles, come with glowing charisma and hardy storage possibilities. Stack same-size boxes on their sides, lengthwise, offsetting them brick-style for equilibrium and a stepped or zigzag effect. Face another one backward for two-sided use. For security, only stack them to half-wall height. A half-wall divider is ideal for entryway separation, shoe storage and light flow in an open-concept dwelling. If you intend to generate a tall divider, fasten the crates with wood screws, and affix the unit to your wall fireplace using brackets. For a modern effect, build the divider from white or bright-colored plastic crates.

Rung Out

When an older stepladder can no longer be trusted because of its intended use, upcycle it like a room-divider shelf. Lay weathered planks across each teeming and its opposite back rail as glowing shelving; seal the entire unit for bug-free storage. Keep any heavy items on the bottom; an attached pail shelf at the top is a bonus and handy for lightweight storage. Line up two or three ladders to fill in a wide span. Bushy hanging plants fill V-shaped voids in between, if you position the ladders feet, as opposed to side by side. An alternative is to make a vertical row of three or three standard or single ladders a foot or so apart as multilevel pot-hanger-style shelving, again securing the top ladder to joists using chains.

Stacked Up

Bookshelves are common room pillars, but shelves made of books — perhaps not so much. It’s simple: Utilize wide, matching height — 1-foot or-so — hardcover or magazine stacks to hold the end of each shelving panel. The panels must carefully match the books’ width, and the unit must not stand overly high –, half-wall height or so — to get security. This job provides a way to set a vintage, dust-collecting novel or magazine collection to use, while showcasing it at an unusually creative manner. Form the notion of more stature on a short divider by organizing tall, lightweight silk plants or vases of divisions or dried ornamental grasses on the top shelf.

Ceiling, Down

Turn a few antique wood-framed windows to your light-filtering space divider. Etched glass or frosted movie offer solitude. String the windows with floor joists to ceiling joists, using eyehooks and chain; find solid joists using a fireplace. Cut a narrow plywood shelf to position lengthwise between the chains, perpendicularly below each window, securing it using wood glue and screws. Paint the window-ledge-like shelves to complement the window frames, and use them to get lightweight storage. A hanging window divider is a focus on its own, but one created from framed stained-glass amplifies the artful effect.

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