Need a cover for high shelves

[jtpr]

We have a utility/laundry/storage room in our new house. I built shelves along one wall that are about 10' hight by 10' long and 16" deep. My wife doesn't like to look at all the boxes and such and wants to cover them up. I don't really want to build a lot of doors on them because of the general layout of the room and accessibility to the shelf space. So, I'm looking for suggestions on what would be a good solution. She has suggested a series of curtains, but finding

10' high curtains without being custom made is tough.

Thanks, Jim

[JoeSpareBedroom]

And, don't mount the curtain rod until she does her part.

[hallerb]

On Jan 23, 11:00=EF=BF=BDam, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrot= e:

obviously married for awhile this is so true.........

[Cindy Hamilton]

Fabric store. Curtains are easy.

Cindy Hamilton

[DerbyDad03]

re: And, don't mount the curtain rod until she does her part

Or mount the rod, and hang a big sign on it that says something like:

Install Curtains Here.

The rod will fade from her view, but the sign will be a constant reminder.

Oh, yeah, attach the sign in such a manner that it will be hard for her to take down.

[EXT]

Also, before she "makes" the curtains, tell her they must be flame resistant for use in a garage. They don't have to be flame proof, but should NOT be made of a very flammable material.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

And backed with kevlar for bullet resistance, in case terrorists attempt to commandeer the laundry detergent. You never know.

[jtpr]

Yeah, I tried that. Let me state we have been married 28 years, together for 31. She doesn't have a sewing machine right now (old one broke, can't afford another at the moment). But I'm going to push that idea bit more. She is far to smart for the old ball in your court routine. I did make the mistake of asking "Who cares, it's a utility room?" The main problem with any of my negotiations is I managed to finagle, when we renovated this house, a woodworking shop attached to it. Problem is, I don't have the time or money right now to set it up (20 degrees here, needs insulation) so I could do a proper job of cabinetry.

But I bet I could find somebody around here with a sewing machine to knock off some curtains. I'll look into it.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Look for a dry cleaner that does minor sewing work. If they can't sew a simple straight hem, they need to be in rehab.

[cselby]

You evil evil man

[jtpr]

What about some kind of draw shade? Where you pull a string and it rolls up to the top. Anybody ever made something like that?

[charlie]

i made something like that to partition 1 bay from my 4 car garage for my wife's studio so we could reasonably run a/c there. i used a very large thick reinforced plastic tarp that gets drawn up onto the ceiling so the garage door can open.

regards, charlie cave creek, az

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Don't be silly. Your job is to read magazines, drink beer and service the woman at your leisure.

You can buy something like that really cheap at places like Target or Slob Mart. If you want something a little nicer, walk into a JC Penney store and see what they have in the curtain department. Check the web site first for ideas.

They always seem to have that stuff on sale. If not, wait a week.

JCP usually has very knowledgeable window covering people working in that departement. Tell the person you want to mount something from the ceiling because your wife is obsessive-compulsive and insists on not knowing what's on the shelves.

[J. Clarke]

ROF,L. There was a scene in the pilot for "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" in which she ducks behind a chair to evade gunfire. Later one of the cops investigating the scene notes that the chair has Kevlar in it.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

That's not funny. Don't you have kevlar furniture?

[Jerry]

Cheap'n'Dirty(tm) solution : buy 10x12 blue plastic tarp, large screw- eyes in ceiling, run clothesline thru grommets in tarp, attach clothesline to screw-eyes at each end. Ugly but functional. Material cost probably less than $20. Now if aesthetics is an issue..... which it very well could be with SWMBO involved, forget I even mentioned it.

Jerry

[DerbyDad03]

I once made the style where there are plastic loops on the back with ropes running through them from the top of the curtain and attached to a bar at the bottom.

When you pull the drawstring, the curtain draws up until it hits a row of loops, folds over on itself and keeps goin until it hits the next row, folding over on itself once again. You end with horizontal layers of curtain at the top, with the whole thing being as wide as the distance between the horizontol rows of loops.

Does any of that make sense?.

[Fred the Red Shirt]

Put up two rods curtains, one at the ceiling, the other halfway up. Offset the top one a few inches out from the shelves so the top curtain can overlap the bottom one aby a couple of inches.

[Father Haskell]

Make the boxes more "architectural" looking with a roller and whatever leftover house paint you can spare. Hopefully, you'll still have some paint left from the laundry room, and the boxes will be perfectly camouflaged.

That, or turn off the light.

That, or live with it. Utility rooms aren't meant to be beautiful.

[Tanus]

I have a similar setup - a smallish bathroom with one wall devoted to laundry and other water-related stuff. I hung sliding doors about 3' out from the wall. In my case it was 8', and three doors did the trick. I had them custom made and they're pretty easy to install.