A Privacy Fence Room Divider: Covering Up an Outdoor Eye Sore

With my reciprocating saw I cut the privacy fence panel into three separate pieces. There were three supporting boards across the back of the entire panel, so each needed to be cut. Each cut section ended up with four fence “slats” on it. That left me with two “slats” leftover which turned out to be a very good thing. As room dividers go I knew I needed to put three hinges on one side and three hinges on the other so it would “fold” in opposite directions so it would stand on its own. (I purchased just basic outdoor hinges on sale at Ace hardware for this job and used small outdoor screws.) I was not worried about the one broken off slat as I knew I would be burying this “room divider” well into the ground so it wouldn’t blow over so the broken slat would never show.

I grabbed some leftover white paint I had and just did a fast dry brush over the entire things. I kept telling myself to make sure it wasn’t “perfect” in any way. I really wanted it to look like it had been here for fifty years like everything else. Then, after a lot of adjustments and not a few four letter words, I got it in place! So… yeah, I didn’t really see that gap coming… No problem! Remember I had two extra fence slats leftover? I simply painted one of them up and tacked it on there, problem solved! No more gap in my outdoor room divider cover up thingy!

Because this IS electrical that I’m hiding I didn't make it permanent in any way. I just drove it into the ground so it can be pulled out easily at any time. This has been up since this spring and it still hasn’t moved at all and we’ve had some SERIOUSLY bad and windy weather this summer. All in – I am happy with how this turned out and it seems like it could really work well in a lot of situations.