Ikea to the rescue!

In a recent "woman's magazine"  I saw some "artwork" created by a person who made large wall "covers" by hanging pretty ikea  placemats, attached horizontally and vertically by some sort of plastic loops. you could use anything to connect them, once you punch a hole in them with a hole puncher.  The placemats were clear with a pattern on them. So instead of a wall hanging, this could be a large moveable wall as follows. Ikea has  the hardware  for window treatments for sliding doors , that when extended can cover the door, but when pulled back (in thirds) creates an opening. Attach the placemat "art" to these sliders and you have a great (moveable) wall. I thought about using it as a door to a room .  Not sure this is fully explained , but if I come across the ref I will let you know. good luck, jeanne

-wooden dowels fitted horizontally in pockets on lengths of fabulous flowey fabric hung either by hospital curtain method (ball bearings in a track) or a tension wire.  if you can get the track you'd be able to send the panels of fabric entirely around the room (360*!!!! Fabulous!)

-salvage french door frames, fit with homemade (or homemade looking) paper, hinges and casters make a fabulous screen.  this can be done with any sort of salvaged doors covered in fabric, paint, decopage (sp?), mosaic... 

- the answer to your prayers.. corrugated plastic 

Best of luck, please keep us posted. 

What if you hung low-density-fiberboard panels from from the ceiling.

You would absolutely HAVE to locate the floor joists above and hang them directly from the joists if possible.

As for the LDF I am thinking specifically of the lighter weight gray colored stuff that people use frequently for tack boards.  You can get it in 4x8 sheets.  It can be smelly, so I would paint it.  But a couple coats of paint covers it well.  Then you have a wall of tack surfaces to hang pictures.

As for the hanging part: Some creative use of hardware at your building supply store.  Heavy duty hooks, maybe some chain link if you like the industrial look, and bolts to secure to the LDF.

Potentially, you could do it without any power tools.  Just a cordless drill maybe.  That would be an important issue for me.  I remember when I lived in an apartment in nyc.  All I had was a hammer and a screwdriver.

Good luck.

Some other ideas:

From IkeaHacker's "Can I Make A Multi-Room Divider Out of Wardrobe Doors?" come some thoughts on how to do something like this:

And Apartment Therapy has another good example of using Ikea wardrobe doors to create a sliding wall (warning, not that cheap at around $800):

(Apparently the full comment was too long so I have to double post)

We then used the extras to build shelves and a small outward desk on both sides of the wall. The end result was a lot more than we had hope for. It still wasn't that pretty though, it was plywood after all. About a week later some friends and I had found some huge sheets of silver metal in a dump. It had some obvious wear and tear but was overall very smooth. We split it up and I had just enough to cover my side of the wall and shelves. After a bit of hacking and bending in a friend's garage I was able to attach the metal over the plywood giving me a nice shiny silver wall. I made additional tweaks to it later on with some vinyl coverings around the edges of the shelves and desk to put some contrast in as well as have those corners and edges be a little less of a threat.

Overall the whole thing turned out great and was very sturdy. I can't say that you'll have as much luck with Home Depot, or any other hardware store as far as pricing goes. But the plywood idea worked well and there are dozens of different things to disguise the wood with. Wallpaper, canvas, fake brick and plastic tiles are all things I considered before I found the metal. Anyhow, hope this little story gives you some ideas. :D