Over the summer, I found a pretty rundown-looking room divider sitting on the curb. I have always wanted one (growing up, I think I thought they were super fancy or something. I actually remember trying to make one out of paper mache when I was little. It did not go well.) and thought it would be perfect for hiding some of the disorganized mess that is the craft corner of my living room.
One of the sheets of glass was missing, but other than that, all of the pieces were present. I took it home (horribly annoying walk) and it sat in my craft corner for a few months. Over the winter holidays, I took a week off from work and finally found time to fix it up. It only took an afternoon and I am in love with the finished product.
For this project, I used the original frame backings from the room divider. If you don’t want to attach decorations directly to the backing or if you do not have them all, you can use sheets of cardboard instead.
Supplies:
Crappy room divider and frame backings (or cardboard)
Cleaning wipes
Black paint (for touch ups)
Scissors
Mod Podge and paintbrush
Old book
Screwdriver
1. Remove frame backings, decorative paper, and glass sheets. You’ll need the backings for later, but the paper and glass are free to be used in future crafting adventures.2. As with any curbside find, you are going to want to thoroughly clean all surfaces.Much better already.3. Tear some pages from the old book. I normally don’t like when people tear apart books for crafting purposes, however I found this 2008 tax book in the lending library awhile back and figured it was destined for the garbage dump anyway so I don’t feel too guilty about tearing it up.4. Trim the blank edges so that more of the text is featured rather than blank space.5. Lay out a few pages to completely cover the frame backing. Trim as needed.6. Using a paintbrush, paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the frame backing. Lay down a section of text, then add another coat of Mod Podge on the edges and corners to keep them down.7. Repeat step 6 until the entire front of the frame backing is covered.8. Add a final layer of Mod Podge on the text-covered surface, pressing down any bumps and bubbles as you go.9. Repeat process on all frame backings.10. While those are drying, you can touch up any nicks or imperfections on the room divider itself.11. Using paint and a paintbrush, cover up any ugly spots. As you may know, not all black coloring is created equal so my black paint didn’t perfectly match the room divider. However, the covered up spots are much less noticeable than the original ugly spots, so it all works out in the end.Lookin’ good.12. Now for some reason, the makers of this room divider thought it was a good idea to use a zigzag pattern so the divider stands like a letter N. This made it very unstable (which may be how one of the glass panes broke, causing the original owner to chuck it to the curb in the first place? Who knows?). To fix this, I switched up the hinges to make a more stable C curve. Completely remove the hinges securing one of the side panels to the center panel.13. Turn the hinges around so they are now facing the opposite way, allowing the panel to swing back instead of forward. Screw hinges back into place.Now more stable with C curve.14. Once the frame backings are dry, secure them back into the room divider.15. Repeat on all panels.So much better. Loving the end results.
