Rich Ideas By Sheila Rich, IIDA, Allied ASID Innovative ways to cover sliding glass doors Interior designer Sheila Rich (IIDA, Allied ASID) has been making homes beautiful all over the country for more than 20 years. Please send your decorating questions to her at P.O. Box 373, Marlboro, NJ 07746 or by e-mail to snrich@optonline.net. Q : I hope you can help solve my decorating dilemma. I have a stained 12-foot Andersen sliding glass door that I don't want to hide, but I do want privacy at night. The room is somewhat modern and informal with a ledgestone fireplace and a cathedral ceiling. I do not like drapes, nor do I want to hide the beauty of the door. There are approximately 18 inches of wall on one side of the door and 32 inches of wall on the other side. I have heard of slider panels (which may stack beyond the door) but have not seen any information on them. I wonder if you have any suggestions or if there is anything new out there. -Lynn A: Lynn, I have two possibilities for you. First, you can use plantation shutters that stack beyond the door on either side, thereby creating a frame for your door and keeping it visible when the shutters are open. Plantation shutters have louvers of varying widths, and I recommend you go with the widest slats possible. However, keep in mind that since they'll be stacking on either side of the door, the width of the slats you choose depend on how much tolerance your room has for the protrusion of the stacked shutters. Part of the beauty of plantation shutters is that even when you have them closed over the doors, you can adjust the louvers to let in varying amounts of light or to give you complete privacy. Your other choice is to use a paneled shoji screen, which has a very Asian influence and lends itself well to a contemporary room. Shoji screens also stack on either side of the door, and their flat panels don't protrude as far into the room as plantation shutters. With either plantation shutters or Shoji screens, you don't have to have them stacked evenly on either side of your door; it's perfectly fine to stack more on one side than the other. Q: My husband and I have been collecting art for a number of years. We want to display it but we don't want the room to be overwhelmed by it, nor do we want the walls to look chaotic. Do our pictures have to be hung symmetrically and have similar frames in order to accomplish this? A: I think it's great that you've been collecting art and want to display it! The personality of your art collection is a big part of what will make your house come alive with its own character. The answer to your question is no, your pictures absolutely do not have to be hung symmetrically in similar frames, unless you're dealing with a dyp-tych or tryp-tych (two or three separate canvases that, when hung side by side, tell a story or give a panoramic view). When planning the layout of your pictures, consider the outline of each wall as the frame and then arrange the art within those separate perimeters. The space you leave between each picture is important too, so make sure you give each piece its own space. This way, every piece of art can be appreciated both individually and as part of a grouping, which will keep your wall from looking overdone and confusing. As for selecting frames, your first priority is to choose each frame to complement its picture. A frame keeps the picture important, but it should never take the focus away from the art. And while the frames on each wall don't have to be matched to each other, all of the frames should work well together and complement the space.