What wall material to use for small shop

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi All, I'm going to build a small room in my garage to do wood working and put in a small a/c unit. It's going to be about 10' x 15' and I'm using 2x4's construction with walls and ceiling insulated. My question is what wall material would you use? I'm trying to decide between OSB (oriented strand board) and drywall. I think I would just paint the drywall but no taping/mudding etc. For the OSB I would just prime and paint also. I'm thinking the drywall would cut easier than OSB. Which do you think you'd go with? Thanks!

[John Cooper2]

OSB is a little more work and a little more $$$, but I would do it and not think twice. Have about 1/2 of my 32'x18' shop in OSB. you don't have to worry about hitting a stud to hang something. Paint it up white and it will reflect some light and when you have a chunk of wood kickback off the tablesaw it will just bounce off the wall and not stick in it.

[John McClanahan]

I hate the looks of OSB. It screams low rent. But I would paint it and use it, rather than dry wall in the shop. Better yet would be 3/8" sheathing plywood, if you can catch some on sale. Then you would have smoother looking walls.

John

[Don McManus]

without giving it much thought, I think my next shop wall will be a cheap beadboard or pegboard plywood, with white factory applied. Something already a smooth gloss white, that I can screw to the wall, and easily replace/modify if necessary without repainting. Also unscrewable walls makes it easier when adding/changing an electrical outlet. You could get a thicker material that would hold screws, but if you just leave the nails/screws unpainted, its always easy to find a stud to hang a cleat on.

My History...I drywalled my last garage, and current garage came with drywall textured and painted. The tools/ boards I stored vertically(i.e. lean against the wall) tear it up, especially when they slide around as you sort through the stacks or knock em over. Long board inevitably get stabbed thru the ceiling/walls as you are turning end for end, with eyes fixed on a machine that is running. Corners on mobile bases poke holes in drywall down low. The texture will skin your knuckles and elbows more times than you'd believe.

Both my garages were textured, and painted satin for glare and that was a mistake....somehow the textured collects sawdust, then spiderwbs...then those collect more sawdust. And the satin don't help. I'd try high gloss white if I was gonna paint. It will look harsh when the shop is empty and bare with 100% white walls, but tools will quickly hide 80% or those surfaces when you move em back in , and the extra light from the 20% goes a lot further. Off whites were yellowish and made my blue white 5000k fluorescents feel dreary orange, like sodium street lamps.

another 2 cents on the A/C unit. When built my last shop, I got a cheap "clearance rack" window at Lowes/HD. I think it was like $35 for a white, aluminum Double pane that would take the biggest A/C they sold. But it paid off when the house sold a few years later, no ugly hole, and I could take the 2 ton window unit with me. Plus you get a some natural light above the A/C unit. To contrast, my buddy has a broken A/C stuck in a hole in his siding , "trimmed" with a 6" bulge of Great Stuff which is rotting from the sun. He is trying to sell the house right now with this eyesore in his backyard.

Just some thoughts...
Don

[Rick Potter]

Another vote for OSB. When I built my shop a few years ago, I had it drywalled and painted it white for light. Were I doing it now, I would just use OSB and paint it white. I have a couple garden sheds that are just a couple years old, and we insulated and did OSB on the walls, then painted them white. Love 'em.

Rick Potter

PS: I forget who, but someone posted about installing drywall or OSB horizontally on his walls with a 6" gap, at the 4' level, all around the shop that he used as a race for electrical. Great idea.

[Carl Beckett]

If I were building a place I knew I would keep and be in indefinitely, I would go with OSB.

If there is a chance you will want to move/resell, I would go with drywall.

The thinking is that few buyers will appreciate a 'shop look', even if they have their own they will likely have a different philosophy towards it than you do (we woodworkers are an opinionated bunch)

By drywalling you can have it easiliy cleaned up (yes it will get beat up) and painted for resale if the time comes. And prospective buyers are more used to seeing drywalled garages than OSB painted and they likely wouldnt like the look. Avoid texturing!! (dont even get me started on all the scraping and resurfacing I have been doing on my house to remove texture - and for the safety patrol out there - yes I had it checked for asbestos before starting)

Ditto on the window idea - light is good and you can find clearance windows at very reasonable prices.

[Ole Anderson]

Go with 1/2" OSB, just slap on 2 coats of a good (read Behr) semi gloss or satin white. Cost is not much more than drywall and you don't need to tape and mud.

[John Lifer]

Plywood, sheetrock, osb in that order. I HATE the sheetrock in my garage, but can't stand the osb look or when you go to drive a screw and whole strip tears loose. YMMV!

[Joe Angrisani]

Bucking the tide, I gotta go with drywall. Clean look, smooth surface that doesn't hold dust, easy to open up if needed down the road. Just looks good, especially as most of it gets covered with something, be it cabinets or racks or speakers or......

I also think the "hanging stuff anywhere on OSB" argument is over-rated. I'd still want my cabinets and anything of weight or value on a stud, and let's face it, it is EASY to find a stud. Or two studs to hang a cleat. And dents have never been a problem, as some report; how often have you actually run board into a wall? I've had a drywalled home garage and a drywalled auto repair shop for 20+ years and I think there might be two holes to show for it (both employee ooopsies).

Go with drywall. It's fast. It's clean. It's easy to keep clean. It looks good.

[Greg Peterson]

Drywall. Better insulator for both sound and temperature.

You may want to check your local codes or ask your insurance agent about it. Drywall provides a fire barrier. OSB or plywood without drywall behind it would only make a bad situation far, far worse.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I've only had basement shops - both of them in houses built in the mid-20s. Cinderblock today, and before it was 30" thick boulders with cement coating over it .

My personal preference is to have one wall - the "tool wall" - that is 3/8" - 1/2" plywood. I simply do not like pegboard, only because I don't want to fool with the hooks, or be limited by where the holes are, and I like to make custom-bracket-holder-thingies for specific tools. I don't mind putting screw holes in the plywood, and I don't mind reorganizing part or all of it - can look like birdshot hit it. It's a shop, not the living room. For example:

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EDIT: BTW - just above the dial calipers, and below the bottom-left corner of the double square, you can see a dent in the wall - direct hit from TS kickback . Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Ray Newman]

Kent Bathurst: I see a slide rule Have not seen one of those in yea and no idea what happened to the one I had way back when.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Kent Bathurst: I see a slide rule Have not seen one of those in yea and no idea what happened to the one I had way back when.

heh-heh-heh-heh...........I dig through dark corners, forgotten boxes, and overstuffed drawers occasionally, and the oddest things pop up. Yep - that's my slide rule from Va Tech Engine School. I stumbled across it one day, and my jaw dropped. A very nice Post Versalog. Pristine Condition. I pulled it out of its molded case, and found a spot to mount it. I remember in something like Thermo, I had to take numbers to negative fractional powers, or some such noise. All I can remember to do with it now is multiplication + division.

Also - hard to see - but if you peer very closely at the "full shop" photo - above the plane till is a slotted card scraper bracket. There is a Veritas card holder. Straight above that is a murky roundish-looking thing. Boy Scout compass, 1966 edition.

[Von Bickley]

My vote would be for 1/2" osb or plywood.

[Phil Maddox]

I have drywall (finished) on three of my shop walls and 3/4" T-111 on the 4th. I'm not a big fan of how the T-111 looks but the flexibility of having wood to screw things into is worth it. If I did it over, I would use 3/4" plywood - maybe T&G or BC. I'd also look into solid wood - maybe something cheap like poplar. I can't take the way OSB looks, painted or not.

I think 3/4" thickness is the best, gives great holding power for all but the heaviest things.

Good luck.