Ann knew the real solution was to give each girl a room of her own, but remodeling did not make sense because a bedroom would open up when the eldest daughter, Meaghan, headed off to college in a year.
Divide Up a Room Easily
Then Ann discovered a painless way to carve out another bedroom by putting up temporary walls that look perfectly solid— but could be removed without a trace when the family’s needs changed. An instant partition seemed ideal, although when This Old House contractor Tom Silva met with the family to discuss the project, Ann still had a few questions. “Will this wall be at all attractive?” she asked, “or will the rooms look like two little office cubicles?” She suggested painting the new walls a subtle shade of white to blend with the rest of the bedroom. Excitedly, Michaela even volunteered to take the small “room” if there was one — just to have her own space away from Cara. Tom assured her neither side would be better than the other, just different. Tom listened to the family’s comments and came up with a plan that satisfied Ann’s concerns as well as the criteria he had in mind.
How Much Does a Temporary Wall Cost?
Carve out a new room with a wall that goes up in hours, costs little more than $200. Whereas, the temporary wall only cost $26 in addition to a few fasteners that he had on hand, departs in almost every detail from the usual way interior walls are built.
How To DIY Temporary Walls
Temporary walls are inexpensive but good-looking. They would need to be so simple that anyone with basic carpentry skills could put them up in a day, using just a few tools and causing minimal mess. And when the walls were eventually taken down, the room would appear untouched.
Choose Your Wallboard Material
Tom’s intriguing choice for wallboard: Homasote, which is composed of ground-up newspapers molded with paraffin and which has not changed since it was introduced to this country from England in 1909. Homasote costs so little (about $20 for a 4-by-8-foot sheet) that contractors often buy big stacks of it to protect floors during remodeling. But it has a textured surface that looks rich, and it’s soft enough to press thumbtacks into — perfect for use as a bulletin board.
Fasten Instead of Nail For Easy Removal Later
Most striking, instead of using screws or nails to fasten the walls to the floor and ceiling, Tom used pressure from furniture levelers — bolts with flat plates fastened to one end — to hold the wall sections in place. Because this hardware wouldn’t work against the angled ceiling of the attic dormer, he fastened the tops of the walls with a new double-stick tape used mainly for affixing hooks and posters to walls. When the Hardys want to remove the walls, they can simply pull a tab on the tape to stretch and loosen the adhesive without damaging paint or any other wall covering.
Put Up the Partition Wall in 3 Steps
Interior walls are usually a skeleton of 2x4s covered on both sides with spackled, sanded and painted plasterboard. Tom’s streamlined walls are just one layer thick, designed to look handsome from both sides. Here’s how he put them up:
Tips for a Clean Divider Wall Finish
The clear pine frame, 11/8-inch thick and 21/8-inch wide, was ripped from stock sold as “five-quarter by 6-inch.” The butt joint is fastened with 3-inch drywall screws. Where screws show, Tom used 21/2-inch trim screws, which have narrower heads. From the bottom up, the wall-tightening mechanism consists of a self-stick felt pad to prevent slippage, a furniture leveler, two 1/4-inch nuts, one of which has wings to grip the wood. Tom used furniture levelers with 15/16-inch legs but wished he’d gotten longer ones to allow for more adjustment. Tom drilled a 5/16-inch diameter hole to accommodate the outer width of the wing nut and screw portion of the leveler. As a further safeguard against leveler slippage, Tom drilled a shallow depression into the coaster, which also protects the carpet.
Ann says she couldn’t be more pleased: “The room still has that openness. And because nothing is screwed in, if you want to take the wall down, you can get rid of it without any big mess. And most important, the girls like it.”
