Do you remember the great wall-destroying movement of a few years ago? People decided to kick down the walls and let the bare wood shine. Ah but as you may have guessed, it didn’t quite work out that way. Having one huge space was nice – until someone started banging about with the blender at 3am or you came to the realisation that the area that had been allocated for a study was, in fact, now a thoroughfare for what sounds like a herd of elephants.
Then there’s the issue of privacy, of which we all think we’re in short supply, especially if we live with others. This is the reason many no longer do ‘open-plan’. For those in the know, there’s a solution that doesn’t involve plasterboard being clawed back into place. It’s a concept called ‘zoning’. If you’re still not on the bandwagon, think of it as a room within a room that doesn’t look like a prison cell.
There are two main ways to zone in a home and the first is the more obvious one: sliding glass partitions. These can be very glamorous but they can also be heavy, expensive and unwieldy. If you’ve got a couple of great-looking glazed sliding doors, you’re unlikely to want to rip them out for the sake of a little extra zoning but if you don’t have a lot of budget, nor do you want to make any further big changes, a timber screen can make a big impact. These screens can be ‘custom-made’. You can mix and match the types of timber you use for the screen and you can customise the style, from slender, deep-space battens to thicker ones, which look more like a wall of MDF. For Timber Merchants Winchester, contact www.timbco.co.uk/timber-merchants-winchester/
The battens can be stained, painted or left to look their original golden colour. The screens can be set into their own cassettes or left standing proud. Some can be raised and lowered, some can be removed and some can be locked in place. What’s so clever about this way of zoning is that because there are gaps in the wood, it doesn’t feel as solid as a glass wall. This means that it works as a barrier but it also works as a filter. You can see through it but you can’t see inside the zone.
Imagine how great it would be to turn a now unused, rather messy corner of a room into an impromptu study – while still being able to keep an eye on your kids doing their homework. You could create a partition that runs across the width of a kitchen while keeping the wall-to-wall hangers for coats in the same spot. Or how about separating the living room from the kitchen and dining room, while still being able to watch your kids.
