Temporary Wall

I am sure this is probably the wrong place to put this, but I have to ask somewhere.
I am going to be renting a house with a loft area. The owners said that many people in the neighborhood have made this into a separate room, and if we want to we can do this too (which would create another bedroom, and we can squeeze another roommate in). Unfortunately, we have no idea how to do this. Is there some way to construct a temporary wall that will offer a decent ammount of privacy to the person without messing up something we shouldn't (the house that isn't ours)? The best idea we've come up with so far is buying a whole bunch of bookshelves and placing them one next to the other to create a wall... I am sure that there is probably something out there that we don't know about, do you know the answer?

 

LostinSLO, Welcome to the DIY Forums.
Have you considered a curtain? Could be made of sheets. The rods could be secured to the walls and when you leave, you would only have minimal patching and hole filling to do. Good luck.

 

LostinSLO: Many years ago while attending college in NYC my Daughter rented a very large apartment with a big loft. The building had been converted from industrial to residential, so it had huge windows that let in a lot of wonderful natural light and lots of fresh air - but it was also a bear, dollarwise, to heat. To meet her rent and staggering gas heat bills she took in roommates and needed to use the loft as another bedroom, but her lease prohibited changes such as erecting a wall.

Her solution was to buy several old shutters and reclaimed narrow louvered doors at an architectural and ornamental salvage yard and screw them together with cheap dollar store hinges. Once assembled, these cheap old reclaimed doors and shutters made an excellent divider that allowed adequate privacy, but also allowed light to pass and warm/cool air to circulate. They could be folded up and slipped into a closet or under a bed when there were large parties, and easily rearranged or painted when roommates came and went. It was a cheap and easy solution. OVD

 

LostinSLO,

I had the same problem and two months ago a friend of mine recommended me to inquire about temporary walls in craigslist NYC, I found few companies that specialize in building walls without damaging the floor and the ceiling. I did it and it with Apartment Dividers witch was the less expensive, but there are few more.

Good Luck with the Wall ,

Scot

 

Can't for the life of me, at this moment, remember the term... but those "paper walls" (of oriental descent) - make fabulous dividing walls at minimal cost....