Sometimes when you’re working on a home improvement project you need to throw away the rules and get a little creative. I recently had to do this when I was refinishing my basement and had to frame out a room while still allowing easy access to a drain clean out. I could have just slapped up a closet door, but that would have looked a little weird in the middle of a wall in my basement office, so I decided to try something a little more fun: I made a removable drywall panel and disguised it as a permanent wall.
The removable wall panel will cover this basement plumbing.
I had a few different options when I was planning out the framing of my basement office. I originally thought about just framing the wall straight all the way across the foundation wall and then putting some sort of cabinet over the drain pipe, but due to the way the drain branched up into the floor above it, I was actually unable to run the framing along the top of the joists all the way along the room. So I opted for the next best thing: a straight wall with a slight deviation.
This was the first room I ever actually framed out on my own and I had never used steel framing, so I was a little apprehensive about trying anything too tricky. I went with a basic squared out design which would allow me just hang cut drywall in small panels. For most of the room I just attached the drywall to the steel studs like I would in any other framing project: I just lined up the drywall and drove in drywall screws.
But for the front access panel I had to do something a little different. I wanted it to look like a regular wall and I needed it to stay in place, but I needed the option to remove in the very rare event that I’d have to unclog my home’s drain. This became apparent to me when I thought I had to find the source of a puddle in my basement. Here’s how I did it:
1. Cut The Drywall: I wanted to use drywall for my removable panel so that it would match the rest of the room. I ran the two side panels flush with the studs, so a solid single panel would cover everything and leave only very small gaps on the side (which I later hid). So for the front panel I cut a piece of drywall out and trimmed it here and there so that it fit over the studs and side walls perfectly.
2. Paint: I painted the drywall panel just as I painted the rest of the room. I used one coat of primer and then two coats of latex paint.
The back of the wall panel, allowing glue to dry on Velcro backing.
3. Attaching the Wall Panel: Now came the fun part – how to best attach the wall panel? I tried two methods.
First, I used rare earth magnets. I did this because I had steel framing which the magnets could stick to and they were the strongest, smallest magnets I could find in a few day of shopping around. I picked mine up at Lowe’s, I believe. I probably could have gotten clever with the magnet attachment, but I stick with “simple” for this and used a liberal squirt of Liquid Nails construction adhesive on each magnet. I made sure they would line up with the frame when they were attached, stuck them to the back of the drywall panel with Liquid Nails and then use some painter’s tape to hold them in place for 24 hours until the adhesive dried.
The magnets worked pretty well, except for one drawback: they are thick. Like, 3/4 of an inch thick. That, unfortunately, pushed my entire wall panel out from the frame and made the gap at the edges just slightly too wide to be easily hidden. So I flipped over the wall panel and carved the magnets off the back of the wall panel with a drywall knife and tried again.
I moved from magnets to Velcro, but not just any Velcro. I used the official industrial strength Velcro which is designed to hold a lot more weight and and is almost a completely different product from the regular clothing grade Velcro. Yes, it still makes that ripping noise when you pull it apart. Again, I relied on my Liquid Nails construction adhesive and used that behind the sticky backing of the Velcro strips (the sticky backing alone just wasn’t up for the task). Lining up the Velcro spots was a little more tricky that using magnets, but it wasn’t impossible.
Once the construction adhesive dried I pushed the wall panel against the steel studs and it stuck perfectly! It should be noted that the Velcro itself was not actually holding up the bulk of the wall panel on its own. Drywall is heavy and it is actually the cement floor of my basement that is holding most of the weight. The Velcro keeps the wall standing upright, but it is resting on the ground.
The finished removable wall panel with baseboard and corner molding.
I only used six two-inch strips of Velcro on my framing to hold the two foot wide wall panel up, though if I were going to hold up a full piece of drywall I would definitely use more or even fashion some sort of metal clip at the top of the wall (above the drop ceiling line). The wall is fairly secure, but not exactly structurally sound. Were we to have an earthquake I’m not entirely sure if this wall would hold up. I planned to brace the wall with a filing cabinet as well and earthquakes are rare in New Jersey, so I wasn’t too worried about what would happen in such a situation.
4: Attaching Molding: Even with the Velcro in place and holding up the wall panel, there was a 1/2 gap all the way down both sides of the wall. The fix for this was easy: I painted some corner molding and, once again, used construction adhesive to glue the molding on both sides of the removable drywall panel. If I were putting up several wall panels all in a row on a flush wall I could have simply used chair molding run vertically and attached on one side of each drywall panel. My molding had to cover gaps at a corner, so I used corner molding. For an added touch I also attached baseboard molding and 1/4 inch round molding to the bottom of the wall panel. This greatly helped in creating the illusion that it was a permanent wall.
Now that my entire basement office is mostly complete, I’ve pretty much forgotten that the wall is removable at all, which is exactly what you want a removable wall to be: so plain looking that it doesn’t raise suspicion or look out of the ordinary.
This was a fun project and one which reminded me that home improvement is one step away from the Do-It-Yourself and “maker” mindset which is becoming more popular as resources such as knowledge, tools and material become cheaper in our country. Though this project didn’t include any electronics or soldering or gadget hacking, it did take a few different ideas from different DIY fields and combine them into something that met my needs and served a practical purpose. I’ve combined similar ideas when I built a gutter cleaner with a chipper vac, built my own soil and rock sifter and when I showed you how you can make your own replacement air filters.
That is a great trick! I will give it a try this weekend and let y’all know how it works out :)
Ingenious idea…if only more people did this, my job as a professional drain cleaner would be much easier (resulting in much more cheap drain cleaning jobs for the homeowners, when they inevitably get clogged).
Great article. This is an easy way to disguise unsightly pipes and utilities. This article makes it easy for anyone who wants to do this on their own.
I have found that the cabinet door magnets (Richelieu AP52030, HD SKU# 773199602620 (10 pk) available at Home Depot and other suppliers.) work very well also.