Your opinion on my method for making a "wood wall"

[Peter Quinn]

I can easily peel the paper off of drywall with my bare hands. I don't know any decent tile installers that tile whole walls anymore by using mastic to drywall directly. Drywall can support paint and not much more. I suggested plywood over cement board because it's much easier to works with and takes fasteners better. Cement board is great for thinset applications like tub surrounds or fireplace areas, otherwise......skip it. Or buy a piece and experience the joy it presents first hand. If the 1/2" plywood is really too thick....and that strikes me as odd, what real difference does 1/4" make at this point?......you could use 3/8" sheathing. My suggestion was to prime the substrate flat black so the inevitable gaps in the walnut tiles show a dark shadow beneath. Whatever the substrate this is a good plan.

on a completely different bent.....it occurs to me you could make tiles.....say one or two rows width, maybe three, by roughly 1/2 the walls width. Rip 1/4" plywood strips the width of the number of courses you choose, secure the walnut to these backers in the shop on the bench using adhesive/screws/nails/staples/ fastener of choice. Then attach the "panels" to the walls with the metal cleats, like z clips. Think shingle siding panels.....you can buy them in 2X4 panels with the shingles preattached for rapid and secure installation. No reason you can't do the same....then when you want to change back to plain wall, you just have to pull off the panels, patch a few screw holes.

[Rich Engelhardt]

The commercial ones you can buy at any home center are T&G.
You're not supposed to glue each one since that will cause them to buckle when they expand and contract.

You nail and glue the starter in a corner, then free float 3 pieces, then nail and glue the fourth after adjusting it for plumb.


[QUOTE][ I don't want the weight to cause the outer paper layer of the drywall to pull away from the plaster center. Make sense?/QUOTE]
Never happen.
The cap molding on top and the baseboard on the bottom will support the wood easily.

Some time - just for grins and giggles, use some TBII or Elmer's and glue a piece of 2x4 to a garage wall - or some other place where there's drywall that you don't mind messing up.
Let it dry, then try to pull it off and make the paper come off the drywall.

Removal is easy. Rip it out down to the studs and hang new drywall. You're only talking about 2 sheets of drywall - about $15.00 and $10 worth of mud.

[william biba]

Nice project! If your worried about weight then screw 1/2 sheathing plywood over the sheet rock or remove the rock first (a bit of a mess) and you wont add to the thickness of the wall. I have used the power grab on a lot of projects and it seems to hold real good. post pics when complete.

[Barry Lyndon]

Thank you all for the advise! Sounds like enough people think the drywall will hold up just fine so that's what we're going to try. Rich brought up a good point. It's the base board that's really holding all the weight. In our case, we took the base board off and will put it back on the face of the bottom row, so really, the floor is holding all the weight. All the wall is really doing is stabilizing the walnut so it doesn't topple over. If I get 1/3 up the wall with the walnut and feel a little uneasy about it I'll put a cleat there and another at 2/3 up to help with the weight.

I plan to have it done tomorrow evening (so in reality, that could mean mid next week). I'll definitely post pictures when it's finished William!

[mreza Salav]

Put a 1/2" plywood up and screw to studs. Then simply get walnut hardwood floor and install them using nails (as if you were installing it on the floor). I would NOT use glue.

[Jason Roehl]

Apparently not many here have remodeled a '70s or '80s-era house. People use to glue all kinds of stuff to drywall, including mirrors. 64 s.f. of walnut isn't a whole lot of weight.

I would paint the wall black or dark brown first, though--that is a good suggestion for if gaps open up due to seasonal movement.

As for the future tear-out, who cares? It's a time-honored tradition to curse the previous remodeler. Besides, even if the face paper of the drywall rips off with the glue, all that needs to be done is to seal the paper that's left, mud, sand, prime and paint. No need to rip out the drywall to the studs.

[scott vroom]

As for the future tear-out, who cares? It's a time-honored tradition to curse the previous remodeler. Besides, even if the face paper of the drywall rips off with the glue, all that needs to be done is to seal the paper that's left, mud, sand, prime and paint. No need to rip out the drywall to the studs.

I'm guessing that would be in response to my earlier post. Actually I was responding to the folks who suggested screwing plywood to the studs over the drywall, and then using construction glue to attach the walnut to the plywood. As someone with extensive remodeling experience that scenario would be a nightmare to dismantle and would involve a circular saw to cut out strips between the studs (and the associated risk of cutting romex/telecom) and then a reciprocating saw to cut each screw behind the remaining strips covering the studs.

IMO a better way to do that job would be to attach 1x horizontal furring to the studs over the drywall (or remove the drywall, add 1 or 2 courses of horizontal blocking between the studs) and then nail the hardwood boards to the furring (or blocking) with 18 gauge FN's. A matching wood filler would hide the small holes. If exposed nail heads are unacceptable then glue the boards to the furring(ugh).