String Door Curtain Made of Repurposed Groceries Carton

I wanted to buy a string curtain, not so much to prevent insects entering the room when the door is open, but to restrict my free flying budgies to the living room, and not entering the kitchen. A solid door is no option, neither a sliding door because lack of space. A textile curtain works more or less, but blows like a sail into the room with the smallest draft. So a string curtain was an option to try. I found different options to buy, but they are cheap and ugly, or acceptable but expensive. So it was time to try some DIY

Materials used:

empty carton boxes of all kind of groceries

metal wire 1.3 mm thick. I used almost 200 meter

metal rod 6 mm, 1 meter

4 screw hooks

Tools:

glue gun

scissors

craft knife

ruler

cutting mat

metal hacksaw

a self made bending mold ( piece of scrap wood, nail, 8 mm dowel in wood or metal)

Measure the width of your dooropening and cut the 6 mm metal rod to that desired length. this rod will be the curtainpole to hang all strings together. Save the rest of the rod, you will need it in step 2

Cut all carton in pieces of 4 x 5 cm. I made strips of 4 or 5 cm with ruler and knife, and cut them smaller with scissors. Roll them in 5 cm long tubes and glue them. You need lots of them! One string in my door was 32 rolls high. I made 8 strings for every 10 cm; total 54 for the whole door. You do the math.

Use the rest of the rod in step one to roll the pieces of paper into 5 cm long rolls. Glue with glue gun or other fast drying glue.

Make a bending mold. Draw two dots on a piece of scrap wood 60 mm apart. On one dot drill a 8 mm hole to place piece of tube, dowel,old drill or whatever you can find that is 8 mm. I used a shelve pin sleeve with a screw. On the other dot hammer a nail. Cut the nail off at 1 cm above the wood and file the sharp end to prevent injuries.

Take your wire and begin 2 cm below the 8 mm dowel. Bend it round the dowel and with some pliers pinch the ends together. The bend it round the nail and snip it off two cm above the nail. If necessary make it straight by hand.

Photo 1 and 2: Pick the first hook. place the first bead over the narrow end. *Hook on the round side of the second hook and place the second bead.* repeat this * * step until the desired length minus one bead is reached.

Photo 3,4 and 5: End each string with a long hook with a straight end. Put the bead on and bend the end in a ring with pliers.

make rings out of 1 cm wide cardboard strips by rolling them on a 8 mm pencil ( or drillbit, or whatever is 8mm) Lace up your bead strings and spacers alternating on the curtain pole you made in step one.

I used 4 screw hooks to hang the curtain inside the doorframe. The 6 mm pole I used to hang the strings needs support in the middle. The result is very pleasing and all the details of carton prints make it unique. Surprisingly the rattling sound of the moving strings does not sound like carton at all, but sound more solid like woodpieces. Very satisfying.

Hope you follow my example and make your own!