Modern Folding Screen

John Bessler

An ivory-painted folding screen pops off the wood paneling in this midcentury living room. The screen enhances the groovy period feel of the room and adds height amongst mostly low furniture.

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Simple DIY Room Divider

Brie Goldman

For a modern room divider, look for something with clean lines and simple structure. This DIY design is made with wood planks and paint. The bold teal color fits right in alongside the other vibrant accents in the room.

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Improve a Room’s Layout

Turn an awkward space into one with flow with the help of a room divider. This almost ceiling height folding screen delineates the space between the small entry and the living room. The screen becomes a wall you can place furniture against, maximizing the usefulness of the space.

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Custom Room Divider

Paul Costello

This modern room divider doubles as storage with an array of shelves that hold books, supplies, and decor. The divider offers some privacy to the desks on either side of the home office while providing easy access to needed materials.

21 Home Office Storage Ideas for a More Productive Work Space

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Built-In Room Divider

Better Homes & Gardens

A half wall—or in this case a three-quarters wall—creates separation while maintaining some openness. This can be ideal for spaces like the kitchen, where you need wall space for utilities or cabinets, but you still want some flow into other rooms.

36 Open Kitchen Ideas for Easy Cooking and Entertaining

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Decorating with Folding Screens

WERNER STRAUBE 

Folding screens can act as art, like this woven rattan screen, which brings warmth and texture to this eclectic but minimal dining room. The lightweight screen can be moved around as needed and simply admired when not in use.

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Bathroom Room Divider

John Bessler

This unconventional shower wall provides privacy and enhances the rustic, coastal feeling of this bathroom. The wooden wall, made with treated planks and posts, offers contrast and warmth in the mostly white space.

50 Small Bathroom Ideas That Maximize Style

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Hanging Plant Wall Room Divider

Buff Strickland

Hanging plants make a dynamic room divider that adds privacy and greenery. Choose plants that trail or vines to increase privacy. Another way to fill out a plant “wall” is to hang the plants at different heights for more density.

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Decorating with Folding Screens

Peter Rymwid

Privacy screens are often works of art in themselves. This painterly screen almost looks like stone. The neutral colors and glossy texture complement the subtle glam of the rest of the sitting room.

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Vintage Privacy Screen

Kim Cornelison

A vintage rattan decor screen, featuring a cheery sunburst design, warms up the corner of this all-white room. Vintage privacy screens like these are a great way to add height in a room or decorate a large area of blank space.

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Room Divider with Storage

Kim Cornelison

A built-in room divider can transform an open-concept space and add functional storage. This wall of cabinets increases the storage in the kitchen while separating the workspace from the dining room. The wall does not go all the way to the ceiling, which allows light and sound to travel from room to room.

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Decorative Room Divider

Jessica Klewicki Glynn

Add height to existing furniture to create privacy and divide large spaces into smaller rooms. This custom screen sits atop a chest, which houses storage for the dining room. The intricate screen echoes the room’s architecture and lets light flow through to either side. You could do something similar with plants or even a repurposed fireplace screen.

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Built-In Room Divider

Christina Schmidhofer 

This stone wall has built-in shelving that’s open to both sides of the wall. This lets more light through, creates a feeling of spaciousness, and allows the objects on the shelves to be enjoyed in both rooms. If you’re remodeling or building a new house, consider if you might want a “window” between two rooms, which creates openness within separation.

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Folding Screen Headboard

Peter Rymwid

A grand screen with a fretwork style design adds drama to this transitional style bedroom. While in this case there’s no need, a folding screen can make an easy faux headboard.

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Midcentury Folding Screen

Adam Albright

This funky midcentury screen can be moved around for a myriad of functions. The shear panels create privacy while allowing light to pass through.

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Light-Filtering Room Divider

Joe Schmelzer

This intricately carved screen filters the light coming through the window, lending a soft atmosphere to the room. The natural wood tone matches that of the dining chairs for a warm contrast to the greens used throughout the room.

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Decorative Room Divider

Peter Rymwid

If you’re nervous about adding pattern to your room, a folding screen is a flexible way to test out a new print. You can even drape different fabrics over a screen to see how they react to the lighting and other colors in the room.

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Traditional Privacy Screen

Jean Allsopp

A luxurious upholstered screen encloses a bathtub, creating a private space to relax. The screen can be folded up when the tub isn’t in use to allow more light into the room.

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Traditional Folding Screen

Dominique Vorillon

The mural on this folding screen adds color and depth to the space. Folding screens come in many styles, so look for one that suits the style of your room. This screen fits right into the decidedly traditional living room.

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Shelving as a Room Divider

Ann VanderWiel Wilde

A cube storage shelf makes a useful and effective room divider. The open shelves make grabbing items like shoes or office supplies easy, and they’re also a natural place to display decor objects or collections.

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Bookshelf as Room Divider

A bookshelf of any kind can be used as a room divider. To get the most use out of your bookshelf, look for one with an open back, which will allow light to pass through and provides access to the shelves from either side.

For optimal light flow while maintaining privacy, consider using room dividers with open designs like shelves or frosted glass panels. These options help maintain a sense of openness and airiness in your space without compromising on the functional separation of areas.

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DIY Room Divider

This half wall is part sculpture, part room divider, and it’s actually possible to DIY something similar. Cut tabs into oval-shaped pieces of cardboard and interlock them to create an artful and surprisingly sturdy space divider.

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Curtains as a Room Divider

Robert Brinson

Curtains create a sumptuously textured and effective room divider. Depending on their thickness, they can also dampen sound. Here, a mustard-color curtain provides an optional barrier between the living space and the dining room.

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Enclosing a Doorway

Jessica Klewicki Glynn

An enclosed archway is a room divider of sorts that can be enhanced or added to an open-concept space. This traditional-style archway got a modern upgrade with shelves of varying sizes between the post and the wall. The shelves add movement and a place to display treasured objects.

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Use Windows as Room Dividers

Here, a bank of multipane windows between the living room and the front hallway makes both areas feel lighter and airier. Long shelves below the windows provide another layer of separation as well as open storage and display space.

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Outfit an Entry with Storage

Here, a large storage unit installed on one side of the front door gives the look of a distinguished entryway. Rather than extending the piece from floor to ceiling, it only extends 3/4 of the way up the wall, which delineates areas of the main level without interrupting the flow of the open floor plan. The high-gloss finish of the storage unit reflects natural light, helping the the space feel even more open.

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Divide with Custom Built-Ins

Both a storage wall and a style statement, this wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinetry creates a breezy separation between the front entry and the kitchen. The frosted-glass inserts on the upper cabinets also help the divider look more airy.

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Create Openness with Partial Walls

To open up the room-to-room flow that encourages social engagement, limit the number of walls that you use to define separate spaces. Here, a quarter-wall offers slight separation between the front entry and the living room without blocking the stream of light from gracing both areas.

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Increase Privacy with Frosted Glass

Create privacy in a bathroom by installing a frosted-glass wall panel. Unlike a normal wall, this frosted-glass option allows light to pass freely between the main area and the toilet while still offering plenty of privacy. Sharing light enhances the sense of space in both areas.

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Connect Rooms with a Pass-Through

Here, an opening between the formal dining room and kitchen makes the spaces seem bigger and provides shelves for storage and display. The cabinets above the countertop feature glass shelves and window panelike doors, allowing light from the large kitchen window to stream into the dining room.

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Pocket Doors as Room Dividers

To divide areas of the home without taking up too much floor space, consider installing pocket doors between rooms. Here, a set of glass-paned pocket doors provide separation between the kitchen and hallway. Even when the doors are closed, the glass window panes allow light to stream freely between the two areas.