I am renovating my small woodworking and do-it-yourself workshop, which as you know I have in the garage at home. Although people who are dedicated to making videos for YouTube, the Youtubers they call us (a name that I do not like too much, much less that of influencer), we usually arrange the workshop more like a set than a workshop itself. Well, the idea is that it should look nice in the videos, or at least decent. That’s why I need to make a small interior wall of wood, to make this corner of the workshop look nice in my woodworking and DIY videos.
And that corner faces a rather ugly area of the garage, which I can’t use since there is a small access ramp there. But I can hide that area with a wooden wall, so that when shooting my videos I can move the camera more freely without worrying of showing the ugly area.
You can see in the following video how I made this wooden wall with a wood strips structure and OSB board (one of those boards made of of pressed chips).
Calculate the width and height of the wall
The width of this interior wall will be slightly less than the width of an OSB board (which is slightly larger than the typical 1220 by 2440 mm chipboard). I don’t need more, and it will be wide enough to use the front of it and also the back, where I plan to hang my homemade woodworking jigs. But for the height I have to take into account the position of the metal guides on which the garage door moves.
We see in this picture the horizontal metal guide on which the garage door moves when it opens. If I were to make this wall up to the height of this metal guide, as the ceiling of the rest of the garage is at a higher height, the end of this metal guide would bump into the wood paneling that I am going to put on the ceiling. So I run the horizontal from the end of this metal guide to the side wall of the garage.
And now, from the tongue and groove wood paneling that I already have on the ceiling and following the mark I just made, I draw the slope that the wood paneling of the ceiling will have and that will reach the top of the wooden wall that I want to make.
You see, I had to make it right where I have that plug 🙂 . I have to remove it, and when I finish making the wall I will have to decide where to put others.
This line, if I cut it with the vertical where I will make the wall, gives me the height of the wall.
I lay the bottom plate and the top plate of the wall structure on the ground. I place one of the vertical studs of the structure on them, and I mark on that stud the height of the wall minus one centimeter. That centimeter is the thickness of the tongue and groove paneling that will rest on top of the wood structure.
Angled rip cut with the circular saw
Another problem I encountered is that the new wall does not form a 90 degree angle with the old wall. And the vertical stud that goes against the old wall should have to be at angle, so that one of the long corners of that stud would protrude through the front of the wall structure.
A bit complicated to explain here, so I made a video in which we see the problem and how I managed to make, with the hand circular saw, an angled rip cut tall along the length of that stud.
Making the structure of wooden strips
The strips structure that serves as structural support for this interior wall will be very simple. It will be formed by a bottom plate at the base, a top plate at the top, three vertical studs, and three horizontal reinforcements (noggings or fireblocks, not sure how to call them) between each two vertical studs.
With the help of my simple circular saw cutting jig, I cut the bottom plate and the top plate to the required length. And that same woodworking jig is used to cut the angle needed for the meeting of those bottom and top plates with the old wall of the garage.
And I also use that jig to accurately cut the length of the three vertical wall studs.
I prefer to use wood screws to join the strips together to make the wall frame, although I suppose a few well-driven nails would be enough. Specifically, I use those screws that have the upper part of the shank without thread, I mean with a smooth shank. The advantage of this type of wood screws is that when you finish driving them in, they press the strips together.
And that smooth part does not grip the wood into which I start to drive the screw, allowing the head of the screw to push the first strips against the other strip into which the screw enters and witch grips the thread of the screw.
Measuring interior wood wall reinforcements
The wooden frame of a wood wall usually requires horizontal reinforcements (noggings, fireblocks). In this case I will put three reinforcements between every two vertical studs.
To measure the interior wall noggings I simply present the wood strips in place and mark the length they should be. I’m going to cut them with my jig for precise cuts with the circular saw, and then I will screw them in place.
That is okay in one side of the wall, but since I put one of the vertical studs at an angle on the other side, there it is a bit more complicated to mark the length and shape of the wood reinforcements.
Here I show how I did it: first I mark the length, and then I mark the cutting angle on the head of the nogging. In the first video of this post I think you can see well how I do it.
On a larger wooden wall I would also have to double the vertical studs at each end of the wall, as well as put other reinforcements on doors and windows, but on this small interior wall this will not be necessary.
When I have the wall frame ready, I lay the OSB board on top of it, letting it protrude all the way around. And measuring, a bit by eye, I screwed the OSB board against the wood strips of the wall frame.
Copy the shape of the old wall and cover it with OSB
Here, after I cut one of the vertical studs at an angle lengthwise, I realized that the old wall is not perfectly vertical (I think because of the wood paneling I put in years ago that started to warp). It’s a good thing that when I cover the wall I let the OSB board protrude quite a bit more just in the side that goes against that wall.
First I will use the plunge router and a trim router bit with bearing to fit the OSB board on the other three sides of the wall.
And once I’ve adjusted the board on the other three sides, I level the new wall against the old wall and I copy the shape of the old wall with a pen and the help of a CD.
I adjust the vertical cutting angle of the jigsaw, and I cut the OSB.
Anchor the wooden wall to the garage floor
Finally, I have to anchor the wall in place so that it is well fixed and firm.
Drill a few holes in the bottom plate of the wooden structure. I present the wooden wall in place and I mark the position of those holes on the garage floor. I drill into the floor and I insert some nylon plugs.
I put the wall in place, I level it, and I anchor it to the garage floor. In the picture you can see something that shows that someone is helping me holding the wood wall while I screw it.
A metallic angle at the top is used to anchor it to the old wall. And a wooden brace holds it against one of the beams of the workshop ceiling.
As you can see, after all the work I went through to cut the vertical stud lengthwise at an angle, in the end that stud is separated from the old wood paneling. On the bright side, when I have to remove that old paneling I can adjust the OSB board to the old wall or to the stud of the wall framing, depending on what I’m dealing with.
And there we can already see the ceiling paneling in place. This is a cheap tongue and groove wood paneling (the problem with cheap paneling is that it always comes with bad quality wood slats and you have to select them) that I painted quickly, I cut it to size slat by slat and screwed it in place with the screws exposed, since for this woodworking project I didn’t need it to look more nice.
And here we can see the back of the wooden wall made with a wood strips structure. In the background you can see that I also covered that wall with OSB boards. And yes, I promise I am trying to be a little more tidy 🙂 .
