I am building a workshop and looking at options for the interior wall finish. I have thought about drywall, OSB, plywood and some of the more expensive material with finished surface. It is a frame building with 2x6 insulated walls and I am looking for a durable and still nice looking interior. Any suggestions?
Dennis
I'm kind of partial to a hand rubbed cherry wall myself. One of my favorites is a nice matched cherry board wall, with a good durable latex paint, rubbed to a fine finish and brought out to a luster with a good coat of Butcher's wax.
Sheath the inside with an inexpensive 3/4" plywood or even OSB, and put drywall right on top of it. The drywall will finish well, with a matt white paint to give you lots of reflected light, and the underlying plywood will let you fasten things up anywhere you want without having to worry about the screws holding in unbacked drywall.
Tom Dacon
dbomke wrote: > I am building a workshop and looking at options for the interior wall > finish.
T&G siding, painted flat white.
Lew
Hand-rubbed cherry like Mike mentioned would be nice, but I think a good curly maple with thinned tung oil then shellac would be a better choice. More reflected light from the lighter surface, you know. More seriously, if I were building a new shop, I'd probably do 3/4" plywood, painted a light matte color unless the ply was quite light to start with. Pegboard is a pain when the hooks fall out (which is just about every time I grab tools off said hooks), so it'd be nice to be able to put in screws/nails/hooks/shelves wherever I wanted. I'd definitely consider some decent insluation (depending on your latitude, I guess), and definitely insulate (for sound, if nothing else) if your shop is adjoining or close to a living space. Do you already have lots of outlets at convenient (i.e. above the bench) heights all around the shop? Congrats on your new space, and have fun with it, Andy
I just lined my new shop with plywood. Can fix anything practically anywhere and I don't mind the look of it :)
Peg board. Just imagine all the options that would give you, and you can always paint it if you like. Don't know how "nice" it would look, but it sure would be functional, and might even be kind of attractive- but I've never seen a whole shop done in it before.
That actually was intended to be a joke, but after a minute's thought, I kind of want to do that to my own shop. It'd be awfully handy to hang jigs and accessories right over the tools they belong to.
And it will produce a huge dust trap behind that pegboard as well.
Whatever you choose to do, be sure to lay down a nice coat of diatomaceous earth between all the studs before you cover them up. It will help with any potential roach problem, and because it's not a chemical it will last a long, long time. Quick info here (through a quick Google searth):
I paneled my new shop with 3/4 plywood. I found a bunk on sale at Home Depot for $29 per sheet (maple veneered, cabinet grade), which is hardly more than the cost of taped, mudded, sheet rock (which I hate to do myself). My shop is a steel building with wood trusses and posts . . . the plywood added hugely to the rigidity of the structure and lets me hang jigs, tools etc. anywhere. I varnished the walls.
The > I am building a workshop and looking at options for the interior wall
You could always leave a few inches at the bottom of the wall open to clean it out with a shop vac or broom, if that's a huge concern.
Sheet rock, period! My shop is taped and textured sheet rock and after 15 years of use it has served me well. Plywood or OSB are poor substitutes in my mind. Comments are made that you can hang stuff anywhere with ply or OSB. Hanging stuff has not been a problem for me. One thing many people do not consider is noise. Plywood or OSB reflect sound more than sheet rock and make the shop a bit more noisier. I have two friends with OSB on the walls and ceiling and I can tell the difference in the way sound travels in their shops compared to mine. A couple years ago I stripped out the shop, patched any holes, sprayed some texture, and rolled on some paint. It looks like new again. Absolutely no regrets going with sheet rock. Greg
Mon, Oct 30, 2006, 9:38pm (EST-1) snipped-for-privacy@insightbb.com (dbomke) doth plaintively query: I am building a workshop and looking at options for the interior wall finish. Any suggestions?
Your shop, right? Your money, right? So put up whatever makes you happy, paint it gloss white, and don't worry about what anyone else has to say about it.
Me, I'd probably put up the least expensive whatever I could find, then I'd nail wood strips (maybe 2X2s, or 2X4s) horizontally around the walls, several strips, not just one - that's so I'd have something to nail into to hand stuff from - I wouldn't care to trust just a sheet of plywood for nailing into. Gloss white latex paint, minimum of two coats, preferably more - believe me, once you get stuff in there, and start hanging stuff up, all that stuff will start sucking up the light, gloss white will help a lot more than semi-gloss. Oh yeah, paint everything but the windsows - walls, ceiling, floor.
JOAT If it can't kill you, it ain't a sport.
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Now I just need to decide which approach I am going to use and get building.
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