Making a Room Divider From Old Doors

4 old doors from the Habitat for Humanity Re-store: $100

paint: $50

hardware: $20

a space of one's own: priceless!

My oldest son is eleven-going-on-fifteen. He shares a huge L-shaped bedroom with his two younger brothers and has been jonesing for his own room for a while, now. Building a new room is out of the question, but I came across the idea for a room divider a while back and thought that would work out perfectly!

I really wanted some cool vintage doors with panels in different configurations, but couldn't find what I wanted, so I finally just settled on some plain hollow-core doors from the Restore. This worked out just fine for a kids' room, because it has a really smooth, modern look. I painted them with shiny, primary-color paints, except for one door, which I painted with chalkboard paint. I then put the hinges on them accordion-style so the whole unit would fold flat against a wall when we need to open the area up. I attached leftover metal flashing cut into square shapes to the red door -- you can use write-on/wipe-off markers on it and it also holds magnets! I am going to put hooks on one blue door, and maybe some cork tiles painted red on the second-to-last blue door. I'm also going to put a funky doorknob on the red door because the hole is already there.

It looks really good, it's sturdy, and it moves easily so Isaac can have his "room" completely private or open it up all the way without much difficulty. I might attach one side to the wall if it gets tipped over, but it seems sturdy enough that it shouldn't tip unless someone really gets a good run at it and knocks it hard.

He's pretty excited about it. He's still got a pretty good-sized man-cave back there, and the two younger kids have a regular-sized room, too. I probably wouldn't recommend this for a smaller room unless you used something lighter, like screen doors with filmy curtains or something. This would be too imposing for a small room as-is.

My Kitchen

I love my kitchen. This is about the closest thing I have to an art studio at home, sadly. But it works. Here, you see my latest project -- a room divider for my oldest son. My 3 sons have a huge, L-shaped bedroom, and the oldest is jonesing for his own space, so I decided to make a room divider for him out of old doors. I couldn't find the cool, vintage doors that I wanted, but I promised to make it for him ASAP, so I went with the hollow-core doors. There will be four of them, painted in different colors, and this one is painted with chalkboard paint.

You can also see the cute vintage aprons I turned into curtains. I have a serious vintage apron problem. I blame my aunt Bonnie, who used to let me play in her apron drawer while she cooked Sunday dinner when I was little. I loved her aprons, and now whenever I look at these, I think of her. She just turned 90 a couple weeks ago, and is still one of my biggest inspirations in the kitchen. If you want to know what to do with just about anything in the kitchen, hang out with a depression-era cook.

And yeah, there are dirty dishes in the sink. Sue me. We actually use our kitchen. It is the place for yummy meals, creative projects, creative projects that become yummy meals, and creative projects that become funny stories. Maybe eventually I'll have an actual art studio somewhere in my house, but for now, the kitchen is my creativity place.