The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Shop walls / ceiling . . . paint?

OK, the ceiling is sheet rocked and the walls are about 1/3 done - cant finish the walls till I finish up a few plumbing and electrical changes.

The walls have 7/16 waferboard on the bottom 4 feet and 1/2" wall board from there up to the ceiling.

I painted the waferboard with a semigloss equipment enamel (very light gray). They now have a dull gloss and solvents and grease wipe off without leaving a stain.

What should I paint the wallboard with? I want it to be bright and I want it to be stain resistant and durable - any ideas? If the whole thing is white - might look too much like a lab. I am thinking something that will have a 30's-50's garage flavor (obviously not really possible with drywall - but humor me :p )

Corrugated steel? :rolleyes:

try a light colored "faux wood" paneling look

Bill

Ken, I have built two shops. I painted the walls in the first one white, my present shop is painted off white. To me, both colors are a great choice.. I find that you can never have enough light..

The walls in both are 1/2 inch AC plywood. It is easy to mount things on the walls without searching for a stud. In the upper areas that are not really feasible for mounting shelves, etc, I have decorated with automobilia. Old magazine ads, antique license plates, old car and truck photos, and porcelain signs that I have purchased at swap meets and on E Bay look great and give it an old time flavor..

OK Ken: My sideline business for 28 yrs has been painting from a little qt. to over 1,000 gals. painting interior exterior factories. My suggestion is: 1. prime your drywall with alkyd enamel fast drying. 2 (2) coats finish of semi-gloss exterior latex it is a shop. This process I have done many times, will allow you to wash walls with high pressure washer if you want to. Detergent ressitance tough as nails.

Now for color that really is your prefernce! White or light off white is recomended, you never have enough light so make it light. 50's or 60's look put a stripe about 18" tall from your wafer board up use a favorite truck color of that period. 53 4 Me is right on about decorations. The old 50's garage always had girl calenders holding onto tools. We build trucks use your imagination!! Need any help anytime e-mail me. popcorn The Truth is Out There (I KNOW PAINTING)

Paint the wallboard with an alcohol based primer sealer. Then use an oilbased, semi gloss paint in a white or off white. Then you hang a bunch of junk on the walls and the brightness is cut by at least 50%. Pictures of trucks help for splashes of color.
Done.

White or off white for the walls but I would run a strip of red or blue or your favorite color at the transition from gray to white. Just a suggestion.

Guess I'll go with and off-white. Bill, I thought about going with plywood on the walls, but fear of fire is a big deal and sheet rock is what it will be. I bought 10 ft long boards so that I wont have any vertical seams between the boards. (there is a vertical 6x6 post every 10 feet around the perimeter)

My wife likes to frame pictures, I think I'll ask her to frame up a bunch of old truck ads I have scavaged over the last couple of years - most are black and white so the frames will have to be the color part . . . that and a few old signs and some spare chrome parts off the buick and trucks / license plates should do the trick.

Man - I am getting close to getting this dang thing done! Will be almost 3 years by mid summer!

Ken, you can buy fire resistant plywood if you are concerned about puncturing the Sheetrock when you throw tools in anger.I read the Russians use cast iron walls and floors in factories,melting down all your scrap metal and casting armour plating on a sand bed sounds like a fun project.
The only proper wall hung pictures in a garage are women in Bikini's or cutoffs ,holding tools or parts they know nothing about.

You could do like they did in the railroad depot in Dodge City when the town was rough and rowdy. Fill the walls with sand! It'll keep your wrenches inside, and the bullets outside.

I have this dream about what I would do in the perfect shop, I think FRP the fiberglass panels that restaurants use in ther kitchens would be slick, They are slightly shiney easy to clean, and fairly easy to put up, only like an 1/8 inch thick and have all sorts of trim available. That way you could wash your walls if you were so inclined.

yeah rusty, I looked long and hard at those for the bottom 4ft of the walls. At $27.00 a sheet and the requirement to seal the seams - just a little too spendy for what I need - it would be nice if $ were no object though

I am off to the homeless despot tonight to go get a few more bats of insulation. Should be done with hanging sheetrock by Friday night! Man I am getting tired of moving truck parts around! :o

Geeze Ken, grease stains on the walls are part of the patina. Also, be sure to test rattle can colors on the floor by placing a small piece of cardboard down and then letting the overspray hit the floor. It's a nice touch to see those overspray marks in that garage and you don't want it looking like 53 4 me's operating room. His garage is way too clean and frankly, I think he's actually some reincarnation of Felix Unger meets Tim the Toolman Taylor.

I have 8' high output vapor tight fluorescents in my shop, garage, and barn, and I am a TOTAL believer in them. They will collect zero dust so they do not become the next hot spot for any fire issues.

Speaking of fire issues, if the sheetrock is a concern, why not run 5/8's fire code instead of the 1/2 inch?

Since the RI night club fire tragedy, we are all MUCH more aware of flammable materials and how quickly something seemingly innocent can be rocket fuel for fire.

Don't forget to put a few Cat5 and Cable drops in those walls before you close them up. Can't have too many options for technology/alarms/closed circuit cameras/etc these days!