How to Install Privacy Screen Hinges

Attach hinges along the edges of your privacy screen panels.

If you want to build a privacy screen to use in your dressing area or as a room divider, you can build one yourself using a construction process that's as straightforward as connecting several panels with hinges to create an accordion-style folding screen. Understanding the best method for attaching the hinges is a less straightforward task, however. Your hinges must face a certain direction on each fold to assure that your privacy screen stands up properly.

Things You'll Need

• 6 hinges
• Measuring tape
• 3 screen panels
• Long level
• Pencil
• Drill with bit
• Small screws

Instructions

1. Lay out your panels in a row, long side by long side, with roughly 3/16-inch spaces between the sides. Check that their bottom edges are perfectly straight and aligned, using a long level. As a result, if your panels aren't exactly the same height, you'll still connect the panels evenly.

2. Measure 5 inches from the bottom of the leftmost panel's right edge, using a measuring tape. Mark this location on the left panel's edge with a pencil.

3. Measure and make a mark 5 inches from the top of the leftmost panel's right edge. Measure between the marks you made along your panel's edge, then mark the halfway point between both marks. Note all your measurements because you'll reuse them.

4. Lay a set of hinges over the gap between the left and center panels, centered over the marks you made on the left panel's right edge. Make a mark directly in the center of each hinge's screw holes.

5. Set aside your hinges. Drill pilot holes into the screw hole marks you just made. Replace your hinges and attach them to the pilot holes with screws.

6. Flip your two attached panels over so the hinges you just attached face the work surface, with the "free" panel still at your right. Line up the bottom edges again and use your earlier measurements to repeat the marks you made on the front of the screen, on the rightmost panel's left edge.

7. Center the hinges over the marks you made, laying them over the gap. Mark inside the hinges' screw holes and remove the hinges so you can bore your pilot holes. Replace the hinges once you've drilled the holes and attach them to the panel with screws.

8. Flip and repeat the alternating pattern for more than three panels.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're painting, staining or otherwise finishing your panels during your privacy screen construction process, measure, mark and drill all the pilot holes, then start the finishing process. Attach your hinges only after the stain, paint or other finish has dried.

References

• This Old House: How to Make a Folding Screen Using Old Hinges and Shutters
• HGTV: Build a Hinged Room Divider
• "Popular Mechanics"; Neal Barrett; November 1985