RPG Basement - Wall Texture

As you can imagine the walls have to be addressed in a major way, to look more like a medieval castle than a drywalled bunker. Now to do so, there are many options ranging from fake vinyl siding (way too expensive) to wallpaper. After “carefully” weighing my options I was fascinated by carving foam boards, which I had seen many others do on the internet especially when looking at set building, but along with the higher price for the boards and the fact that it always remained somewhat soft, made me look for similar end results with slightly different methods. 

What I landed on are drywall and spackle! For those who want to call me crazy right about now – go for it, I deserve it! My hubby sure thought I was going bananas, but nonetheless, I went for it. The process was, like everything else on this project trial, and error. The good part about the project is the fact of it purposefully trying to look rustic, so irregularities and failures are somewhat welcome. 

Setting the stage:

Step 1) Get Drywall sheets home from the hardware store (see “getting all the stuff” for the struggle).

Step 2) Cut the drywall to size in what roughly resembles a straight line.

Step 3) Try to carry the drywall pieces downstairs.

Step 4) Realize that your stairway is too narrow to accommodate the drywall.

Step 5) Squeeze the drywall down the stairs anyway – We ain't no quitters! 

Step 6) Begrudgingly cut another inch off the top of the subsequent drywall pieces, so you don’t have to fix your good stairway walls because of this.

Now that the heavy lifting was done, I got to work on the fun part – adding texture and dimension to the otherwise sad walls. The general look I am trying to go for here is plaster on top of rocks, which in some places are exposed. 

I started by lining up the drywall sheets to better get a feel of where to position “spots of rocks”. Once they were lined up, I marked where the outlets were hiding even though deep down, I just wanted to plaster right over them, which would have saved me some heartache. 

Next came anger management, as I got to rip holes into the drywall slabs. I started by sketching out some general shapes, scoring along the lines with my trusty utility knife, then prying/ breaking off the drywall pieces. – NOTE: Wear gloves, if for no other reason than the fact that the paper backing of the drywall is evil and will give you a papercut whenever possible. 

Once the area for the “spot of rocks” looked good enough I screwed the drywall to the already existing drywall. Yes, this step felt more than weird but had to be done nonetheless. 

SPACKLE TIME!!! 

I am outlining two methods I have used, as of this time I do not quite yet know the full success rate of either – stay tuned!

Method #1 

Step 1) Glob the spackle onto the original drywall to the level of the new drywall. 

Step 2) Try to even out the spackle as much as possible using whatever straight surface you have available to do so. 

Step 3) Start carving out general rock shapes.

Step 4) Discard all the extra spackle for later use, or wipe on the wall next to you for some extra texture, cause why not? 

Step 5) Start shaping the general outlines into rocks. 

Step 6) Realize that you need the rocks to be thinner than the drywall. 

Step 7) Repeat steps 2-5. 

Step 8) Smooth out the rocks. 

Step 9) Let dry. 

Step 10) Let dry some more. 

Step 11) Take some extra spackle to go along the edge of the drywall to create some overhang. 

 

For step 1 I used a 6” joint knife to get the spackle on the wall. 

To even out the spackle I started with the joint knife and moved on to a piece of cardboard –If you are offended by my lack of proper tool use, you may want to stop here as it will just get worse!

I think carving out the general rock shapes was the most satisfying bit of this task, as it took the unassuming flat surface and started to transform it into a “rock spot”.

I used a super high-tech tool called plastic straw! Why you may ask. Well simply because we had one laying around and it seemed like a good idea at the moment. I tried to vary between sizes and shapes of rock to keep interesting, whilst not going too crazy. All the excess spackle I carved out, I simply added back to the bucket for save keeping. 

What you get from the general shaping of the rocks wasn’t really that appealing but gave me a good foundation to further shape the rocks. 

Using a combination of fingers and bits of cardboard I rounded the edges of each rock and gave them a general texture. Gently tapping the spackle with your fingers, knuckles etc. gave them what I think a great texture. In some spots the spackle remained tackier than others, wiping off your fingers helped, as well as just giving it some time to dry further. 

Waiting for the rocks to fully dry was possibly the hardest part for me as someone with zero patience, but nevertheless had to be done. Once I felt like the rocks could handle it, I went back to my joint knife, added some spackle, and touched up the edges to the drywall. 

Method #2 

Step 1) Realize that you used a gallon worth of spackle for one small area of method #1 and decide that this will be way too expensive to continue. 

Step 2) Look around for other materials. 

Step 3) Realize that you have an exorbitant number of cardboard boxes, thanks to an online shopping problem. 

Step 4) Cut off some slabs of cardboard to trace the “rock spots”. 

Step 5) Sketch the rock shapes onto the cardboard. 

Step 6) Cut out the shapes. 

Step 7) Glue shapes to the wall. 

Step 8) Pretty much use method #1 using the glued shapes as guides. 

So yeah, using spackle alone turned out to use a lot more of the spackle that I had hoped for, so I

wanted to try introducing a second medium to curb that a bit and cardboard seemed like the natural decision given its abundance in our house at the moment. 

After tracing the area to the cardboard, I used a sharpie to lay out the general shapes for the rocks. I used the plastic straw to guide the spacing thickness between the rocks, to stay consistent.

I then cut out the shapes in duplicate, to glue two layers together to gain more height. (This may vary hugely on the thickness of drywall, as well as cardboard used). 

Trying not to mess up the order of the shapes between tracing, cutting, gluing, and transporting them back to the basement (Yes I went upstairs to watch TV whilst cutting these – did it make the process more difficult? Possibly, but I got entertained whilst doing so), I then glued them directly to the wall.

What glue you may ask, but surely just the best. Elmer’s of course! Yes, both for gluing the cardboard layers together as well as gluing the shapes to the wall. 

Then I followed the same steps as the previous method, by adding spackle to the mix, carving along the shapes etc. This method did use soooooooooo much less spackle, and at least so far looks great. Once everything is painted, we will have to see if there is a huge difference between the two methods. 

Power outlets

Like I mentioned already I wish I had just ignored them, but oh well! 

Essentially, I created a removable cover for the outlet and then treated it along with the rest of the wall. 

I sketched out the shape of the outlet onto a piece of clear plastic – In this case an old potting tray.

Added some Velcro hanging strips and covered the sucker up. I then treated the cover as its own little rock shape in method #1 and #2. – We shall see how it will look once fully dried and painted. 

Extra Credit

For some extra texture, I smeared some leftover spackle directly on the drywall slabs. Mostly I used the joint knife to distribute the spackle, but I also used the walls to wipe off my hands here and there to add that extra flair!