One of the best things about living in New England is the great weather we have 3 seasons out of the year. (Those winters are brutal, though.) We fell in love with the back patio when we found this house, and we tend to spend lots of time out there. We have great privacy, except for the neighbor across our back fence, whose house is on a little hill. Most of the time, that bare tree is a beautiful, red Japanese maple and does give some privacy.
Back in the Fall, we put in a hot tub. Until now, we've limited our skinny dipping soaking until late at night after those neighbors have gone to bed, but we really wanted to be able to enjoy the hot tub in the mornings, too. A privacy screen was just what we needed. I found one I like (see below), but to get the size I wanted was going to be well over $500. Way too expensive. So I sat down, sketched out what I wanted, and headed to Home Depot.
Materials used (for 4 panels) - 8 10' pieces of 1/2" pvc pipe, pipe glue, 2 cans of black spray paint, 8 pvc elbow joints, 8 pvc tee joints, 9 worm gear clamps (covered with black duct tape), 8 yrds of outdoor fabric, 3 rolls of ribbon, thread. The total cost for materials was around $150, with the fabric being $80 of that. (I found the outdoor fabric at Jo-ann on half-price sale.)
We cut the pvc into 7 foot pieces for the vertical pieces, with the remaining 3 foot pieces for the horizontal pieces. (Easy, right? One cut per pvc pipe.) We used the elbow joints at the top of each panel and put the tee joints at the bottom to allow a "foot" to add stability. We glued them together, spray painted them, and then hooked them together with the clamps. It really was so simple.
Each curtain is made from a 6 ft length of outdoor fabric, hemmed on all four sides. I then added 6 ties to each one made from inexpensive satin ribbon. We are really happy with the way they turned out!
The perfect amount of privacy from those backyard neighbors to allow skinny dipping any time we want!
This is amazing & suits my needs perfectly! Thank you for sharing! Do you have a " guess" on what it cost to make ?
ReplyDeleteFantastic! I love it and plan on copying your idea. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThese directions are garbage! I followed them exactly as you suggested using the 1/2” pvc pipe and there’s absolutely NO WAY these screen frames will be useful for anything except filling my trash can! Not only are they rickety AF when assembled, they bow under the weight of even the lightest fabric AND any wind knocks them right over.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke. I should have trusted my own instinct when I saw your picture and realized you were being untruthful about the size of the pipes. Yours are clearly larger than 1/2”. Maybe don’t try fooling people in the future just for a few clicks.
Ridiculous.
This was posted 6 years ago. I an sure there was no intent to defraud anyone as it seems to.be a typo. She probably meant to put in 1 1\2 inch or 2 inch pipe as that seems to be the size in the photos.
DeleteHowever,although it probably worked for her application, you would need to add some weight to the bottom of the bottom pipe to offset the wind issue in most situations. Sand or paved bade makes an excellent ballast. Adding a foot or two to the bottom feet would help.immensely.
Also one can use metal hinges instead of worm clamps to secure the pieces together.
Love it. I made one myself, but I made the design the height to accommodate shower curtains. There's a million colors available, inexpensive, water proof, machine washable, and already hemmed. No sewing necessary. I also did a bottom bar ( using T fittings) so I can run the bottom bar in the bottom hem channel, so they won't flop around.
ReplyDelete