Room Divider

This was the view of the Laundry/Kitchen end of our little apartment:

At the far left in this photo, the tall blonde boxy thing is a narrow book shelf unit from Ikea (back when we lived in Batavia) that we bought as a pair and have used in several configurations.  Although it's nice to see as much of our little place, we thought it might actually be better if we hid some of the clutter.  So a divider seemed a good idea.  Here's what we did:

The second shelf unit was added with custom spacers and shelves in between to accommodate the vacuum cleaner, computer printer, toaster oven, and electric frypan. 

Next I added plywood backer:

Deciding on what to cover this surface with was going to make or break the whole project.  We hoped to find interesting fabric.  So we visited Handcock Fabrics in Paducah, Ky. (about 50 miles from us). This isn't your typical Handcocks Fabrics like in every strip mall in the mid-west.  It is an independent store in the city that has the National Quilting Museum.    http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/
We did find something we thought would work.  It did.

We really like it.  Although the room is actually a bit smaller, now, it doesn't feel bad.  It defines the space better and does hide much of the utility spaces.  The living area seems a bit more formal, without including the kitchen (and laundry) stuff.