BY: KELLIE GRENGS

Bring together a room with a rejuvenated screen.

Folding screens are a great way to divide a large room or mask off a certain area—like a messy home office you want to hide. Screens come in a variety of sizes ranging from two panels to five panels. This particular four-panel screen served to separate a kitchen and a dining room/home office area. The screen needed a fresh new facade and I decided to create two distinct looks for each side of the screen by using two different fabrics and trimming. For the kitchen side, I chose a vintage pattern and trimmed the edges in cream grosgrain ribbon. For the dining room side, a green decorator shantung with green gimp trim for the sides and tasseled trim for the top of each panel was used. Finally, I touched up the old hardware with silver enamel paint. Voila!

Measure the opening area of the panels that you will be covering.

Measure the circumference of the opening for the trim.

For this project, each panel required 16-inches-by-70-inches of fabric and 5 yards of trim to hide the stapled edges.

Prep the panels by lightly sanding

the entire frame and wipe it clean.

Cover the hardware with masking tape.

Spray the frame with as many as three coats of paint for even coverage. Because the frame had been black, this project took four coats of almond spray paint to cover the dark paint.

Cut the fabric panels and iron out any wrinkles.

Use 1/4-inch staples in the staple gun. Secure the fabric at the top of the panel first, then move to the bottom of the panel; and tightly pull and staple the fabric. Staple the sides of the fabric keeping it taut and smooth.

Use a hot-glue gun to secure the trim covering the staples. Use multi-temperature glue sticks that work on fabric and wood.

TIPS

¨ A pair of old shutters fastened together with hardware create a unique bi-fold screen.

¨ Instead of fabric, use patterned wall-paper to cover the panels.