I finally saw a neighbor's reclaimed wood accent wall in their Kansas City basement

They used old barn wood from a property outside Topeka, and the texture is incredible. I want to try something similar but my basement walls are concrete block. Has anyone attached wood directly to cinder block without a frame?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_black5d ago

My friend Mark in St. Louis tried that on his cinder block garage wall about two years ago. He used a special construction adhesive, the kind in a big caulk tube, and pressed the planks right onto the clean blocks. It looked amazing for a few months... but last winter the moisture got to it. The wood started to bow out in the middle and the adhesive let go in a few spots. He ended up having to tear it all down and build a basic frame anyway to get air flow behind the wood.

sean_torres715d ago

Yeah that's the exact problem I read about. Moisture just builds up behind the wood with no way out. Even on an inside wall, cinder blocks can sweat or pull moisture from the ground. Saw a whole article where a builder said you always need that air gap, like a rain screen. The adhesive might hold the wood, but it traps everything wet against the block. Then the wood swells and pops off. Your friend learned the hard way, but he's not alone. Seems like skipping the frame is a shortcut that always fails.