Which room divider?

[OneMoreFarang]

In principle I like the idea about large open spaces. But sometimes it is nice to be able to divide a bigger room in two smaller parts.

I am looking for options about what is available and what is practical and makes sense.

One reason for such a divider is a visible barrier to hide one part of a big room.

Another reason is to save electricity of the aircon when one part of a room that is not used is separated.

Sliding panels are probably a better barrier for air circulation and noise.

Curtains are easier to use. They won't really seal one room part airtight but maybe they still do a relative good job to hinder air circulation.

Do you use any room divider?

Do they work the way you anticipated and do you use them?

Or do you think in the hindsight you should have installed another kind of room divider.

Obviously the type of room divider also depends on the installation. It will be a lot more difficult to install sliding panels in an existing room. In my case that consideration doesn't matter for a complete renovation.

 

These are just sample pictures for two of the options.

 

 

[Kwasaki]

Both are the way to go only one is more expensive than the other. 

[Will B Good]

Second pic (Japanese?) looks good, not a fan of internal curtains.....look very dated.

 

We did have large glass doors, but they were clear so they didn't provide any privacy.

[1FinickyOne]

How about an iron curtain?

[fondue zoo]

I think I've seen that top location in some.. "videos".   

 

[VocalNeal]

I think it depends on the decor of the room. Here in Thailand sliding aluminium doors/windows are cheap and any glass shop can install them. They are on the front of every shop house. 

Different colours of frames and glass. 

 

If you want a vintage look. Concertina wooden sliders.

[KhunLA]

We went with curtain at last house, and worked out great. 

 

Needed to pass through quite often during the day, so curtain much easier to simply walk through, than sliding panels or doors.   Being cheaper didn't hurt either.

[OneMoreFarang]

Thanks for all your comments.

Here are some possible pros and cons:

The sliding door are a "real" separation almost like a wall. And, IMHO, they can look good.

The curtain looks like a curtain - I guess some look better and some worse.

I think the advantage of a curtain is that it can be easily opened and closed with one hand. I.e. if the curtain is closed and I want to walk into the closed section to just get something and walk out again that is a lot easier with a curtain. I can move it on each side a little or more or maybe just move it out of the way without opening it.

With a sliding wall that is (I guess) more difficult.

 

Maybe there are also good other options which I don't know yet. Any ideas?

[VocalNeal]

I'm going to divide my man cave into half TV room and half workshop. The sliding door option is more likely to keep hydrocarbon smells out of the TV bit. 

[Hamus Yaigh]

We've got sliding frosted glass doors and curtains to close with them for added coziness and lets one room stay light whilst other dark.!

[Denim]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Curtains are easier to use. They won't really seal one room part airtight but maybe they still do a relative good job to hinder air circulation.

This is what we found with our 3 bedroom house in Bangkok.

 

The ground floor was open plan , living room , dining room and kitchen. Wasteful to get a huge air conditioner to cool it all when we were only sitting in the living room watching television. So , we went and bought some heavy duty material and had two curtains custom made to pull across the gap dividing the living room from the rest.

 

Worked very well and although not 100 % perfect did a pretty good job of keeping the cool air from leaking out into the dining room and kitchen

 

Another option we considered was folding wooden door panels in a colonial style.  Four panels that folded in the middle. Nice but needed to be custom made which proved a headache to arrange.

 

[Will B Good]

Mmmm...someone mentioned concertinaed doors........that sounds good......we're looking at using those on a gazebo/summer house.

[scubascuba3]

i planned to have a sliding door but in the end I didn't bother and glad I didn't, advantage, air flows better, more visibility, saves time, no loss of space.

 

Maybe try no sliding door first, then add after if need be

 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, VocalNeal said:

I'm going to divide my man cave into half TV room and half workshop. The sliding door option is more likely to keep hydrocarbon smells out of the TV bit. 

I have that workshop in the little room which my girlfriend suggested we  should misuse as a guest bedroom. No way! 

[bankruatsteve]

8 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have that workshop in the little room which my girlfriend suggested we  should misuse

I cut off the rest of your statement and getting ideas already.  ????

[OneMoreFarang]

I like this one, no idea if it is available in Thailand.

And if it is available and if I do it then my idea is to slide it completely out of the way so that it's not visible when it's open. Let's see...

 

 

 

[timendres]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I like this one, no idea if it is available in Thailand.

And if it is available and if I do it then my idea is to slide it completely out of the way so that it's not visible when it's open. Let's see...

 

I love glass walls, and this one looks fabulous.

[bbko]

I was going to suggest an accordion room divider, it's sturdier than curtains and folds away better than sliding doors.

[OneMoreFarang]

35 minutes ago, bbko said:

I was going to suggest an accordion room divider, it's sturdier than curtains and folds away better than sliding doors.

Yes, that is another option.

But somehow it reminds me of a school or something like that. I better leave that one out. 

[gamb00ler]

In our previous house we were planning on using a curtain to separate the kitchen from our combination breakfast area/family room.  It would only be used while the wife was cooking something with strong odors.  In combination with the kitchen vent hood the curtain would mostly stop the spread of cooking odors.  When retracted the curtain fabric would be concealed in a 10-15 cm wide floor to ceiling doored cabinet attached to and matching the kitchen cabinets.

 

We decided to move to CM so that project was shelved.

 

I googled to see if I could find an illustrative photo, but came up empty.

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

In combination with the kitchen vent hood the curtain would mostly stop the spread of cooking odors.

That’s what I like unbridled optimism! 555555

 

It’s clear that you haven’t actually tried that theory. Thai cooking can rival chemical war-fair for its ability to spread its effects. It certainly could work, if you have an extraction fan that’s strong enough to suck up most pets and small children. There is a reason why even most Thai households have a kitchen outside. 

[gamb00ler]

My wife being from Central Thailand only rarely produced the toxic clouds from her cooking.  Every few months she liked to deep fry a batch of the "insee" salted fish that we love to use as a condiment.  She always did that outside and she never tossed powdered dried chilis into a hot wok to produce those clouds of pepper gas that make me cough and cry.

[murphybridget]

I would o with that too. Its a lot more robust looking than curtains.

[brianthainess]

On 3/14/2022 at 11:15 AM, Will B Good said:

Second pic (Japanese?) looks good, not a fan of internal curtains.....look very dated.

 

We did have large glass doors, but they were clear so they didn't provide any privacy.

You can easily buy stick on frosting, or dark tint, not sure why you need privacy on internal doors though. 

[brianthainess]

On 3/14/2022 at 2:48 PM, bbko said:

I was going to suggest an accordion room divider, it's sturdier than curtains and folds away better than sliding doors.

I have seen these fitted with glass panels at an instore coffee shop.