Wall Coverings in Basement Shop

[Peter Aeschliman]

Hi All,

I'm in the planning phase of moving my shop into the unfinished basement of our new (to us) house.

I want my wood shop to feel like a wood shop- to be a unique space where I feel inspired to do good work. For that reason, I'm not thrilled about the idea of painted white drywall, osb, etc. I'm leaning towards using cedar tongue and groove to cover the wooden upper portions of the walls above the poured concrete foundation (about the upper 3.5' of wall). I love the look, and like that I can hang things pretty easily on it. For example:

http://mybasementwoodshop.blogspot.com/

But I got to thinking about the case of a fire. I understand that drywall can keep fire at bay a little longer than wood. Am I'm over-thinking this? Obviously I won't do stupid things that could cause a fire, and I'll have fire extinguishers down there, etc. But I do want to think about safety, especially because this is a basement shop and non an out-building.

Thanks,

Peter

[Nick Coffelt]

I'd go for the Cedar. I have plywood walls and I dont ever plan on painting them, then again my wood shop is in a barn so I have a little more light. I'd love to re-do it or finish some of the unfinished area with T&G.

[Don Jarvie]

Go with the wood. If your really worried about fire then you need to sheetrock your ceiling and plug any openings in the ceiling that fire could escape to. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[David Ragan]

Early on i saw shop w bead board. I did it and love it. The vertical pattern lends itself to lining up studs/outlets, where boards merge, and distracts from the inevitable holes etc that happen in shop walls. Cheap too

[Joe A Faulkner]

If you are that concerned about fire hazards, you can apply a fire retardant clear finish over wood. This is required by some codes where wood is the finished surface for walls or ceilings. I know when we added an to our church and covered the ceiling in pine, we were required to apply a fire retardant finish. Of course in an unfinished basement, as Don has pointed out, you already have plenty of readily combustible exposed parts.

[Andy Fox]

You could put up drywall and then wood over that.

[David C. Roseman]

Hi All,

I'm in the planning phase of moving my shop into the unfinished basement of our new (to us) house.

I want my wood shop to feel like a wood shop- to be a unique space where I feel inspired to do good work. For that reason, I'm not thrilled about the idea of painted white drywall, osb, etc. I'm leaning towards using cedar tongue and groove to cover the wooden upper portions of the walls above the poured concrete foundation (about the upper 3.5' of wall). I love the look, and like that I can hang things pretty easily on it. [snip]

Peter, the paneling is a nice look for sure, but somehow I doubt that you're going to need it as inspiration to do good work in your brand new wood shop.

As others have said, I wouldn't worry about it increasing the fire hazard over what's already going to be there. I do recommend heat detectors wired to a local and central alarm system, tho, whatever you decide on. I'd be more interested in assuring good, bright lighting. Painted white drywall or masonry isn't as charming, but it would reflect available light much better, in my experience.

Since you're still in the planning stages for your shop, check out the new LED shop ceiling fixtures. They've come down in price recently. Was in Costco a couple days ago and they have the Feit 4' dual-tube shop fixtures on special for the next three weeks for $32 after an $8 instant rebate. 3700 lumens, and claimed to last 50,000 hrs.

[Tom Giacomo]

My shop is in the basement and I would go with the white walls because in a basement your going to want all the light you can get.

[roger wiegand]

I did my walls in maple laminate slat board wherever I could. Nice to be able to hang stuff most everywhere, the maple is light enough to bounce the light around, and it's not bad to look at.

[Anthony Whitesell]

OP: You mention the top 3.5' is what you are looking to sheath, possibly with cedar. in my shop, the top 3' of all my walls are hung with stuff. If you can get/make the cedar t&g cheap, then I would say go for it. In my case I would end up drilling it full of holes and filling with screws and screw holes. Not something I want to do to something that cost a lot of money. Are you planning to leave the bottom portion exposed concrete? Bare or painted?

When I moved into the house there were two rooms framed in parts of the basement. One was sheetrock covered by faux wood paneling, the other was sheetrock covered by white popcorn paint. Eventually I removed all of the above and hung new sheetrock in both rooms, knowing that one room was for woodworking. I never considered using plywood or osb instead of sheetrock. Double mistake. First with every tool on wheels the sheetrock has torn paper right about chair rail height and looks rather abused. Second, I'm stuck with hanging stuff only where there are studs. If I could do it again (and I just might be) I would definitely opt for OSB or plywood (probably plywood). Maybe 1/2", probably 5/8". It would need to be fairly clear, but not cabinet grade. Occasionally the Home Depot in these parts has a deal on poplar, Aruco, or (unnamed) "hardwood" plywood in 3/4". I have used at least one of each for various projects and I have been able to find a clear sheet in the stack when I needed it. Finding a "room full" might be another trick, but I would try. For plywood walls with a nice face, I would slap on a coat of clear poly. For osb maybe the poly, but probably skim coat of joint compound and white/off-white paint.

If you don't go with the cedar, I would say plywood next choice, followed by osb, sheetrock last.

[Peter Aeschliman]

OP: You mention the top 3.5' is what you are looking to sheath, possibly with cedar. in my shop, the top 3' of all my walls are hung with stuff. If you can get/make the cedar t&g cheap, then I would say go for it. In my case I would end up drilling it full of holes and filling with screws and screw holes. Not something I want to do to something that cost a lot of money. Are you planning to leave the bottom portion exposed concrete? Bare or painted?

When I moved into the house there were two rooms framed in parts of the basement. One was sheetrock covered by faux wood paneling, the other was sheetrock covered by white popcorn paint. Eventually I removed all of the above and hung new sheetrock in both rooms, knowing that one room was for woodworking. I never considered using plywood or osb instead of sheetrock. Double mistake. First with every tool on wheels the sheetrock has torn paper right about chair rail height and looks rather abused. Second, I'm stuck with hanging stuff only where there are studs. If I could do it again (and I just might be) I would definitely opt for OSB or plywood (probably plywood). Maybe 1/2", probably 5/8". It would need to be fairly clear, but not cabinet grade. Occasionally the Home Depot in these parts has a deal on poplar, Aruco, or (unnamed) "hardwood" plywood in 3/4". I have used at least one of each for various projects and I have been able to find a clear sheet in the stack when I needed it. Finding a "room full" might be another trick, but I would try. For plywood walls with a nice face, I would slap on a coat of clear poly. For osb maybe the poly, but probably skim coat of joint compound and white/off-white paint.

If you don't go with the cedar, I would say plywood next choice, followed by osb, sheetrock last.

Thanks for your input! To answer your qeustion, I plan to leave the concrete lower portion of the wall exposed. Since directing my downspouts away from the house, I haven't had any visible moisture intrusion in the basement (and it rains a lot here). But I'm paranoid. I don't want to cover any concrete and risk mold issues. So I'm also leaving the raw concrete floor exposed.

The concrete portion of the wall has some troweled-on material (previous owner tried to dress it up I guess), but it's crumbling in a few places. I can scrape most of it off by lightly raking the claw side of a hammer on the wall... It has the consistency of drywall joint compound or plaster... I'm pretty sure it's joint compound. I may scrape some of that off, but unfortuantely it's embedded pretty deep in the small voids in the concrete, so I don't think it's going to be possible to prep it properly for paint or anything else. To make it look better, I might actually attach some boards to the wall with gaps (kind of like decking), with spacers between the concrete and the wood. I want to let the concrete breath... Haven't figured that out yet though.

I do plan to hang cabinets and pegboard in a few places on the upper parts of the walls, so I may not go with cedar T&G everywhere. My reason is purely aesthetic (compared to plywood or osb).

[roger wiegand]

May be overkill in Seattle, but we did our basement with 2" of a waterproofing foam product on the exterior, 2" of rigid foam insulation on the interior side taped and sealed, then a 2x4 stud wall with fiberglass batts, getting us around R30 for the basement walls as well as an easy to finish and wire surface. Most comfortable basement I've ever had!