finished surface over plywood

[affordablehousing]

Forum team, I'm looking for suggestions. I'm installing a basement bathroom, and at the same time will be installing plywood sheathing on the interior wall to provide shear wall bracing (earthquake country). For various reasons it would be great not to add any more wall thickness beyond the plywood and I was wondering if there was something I could do to finish the plywood that would make for a cool looking bathroom finished wall.

Some ideas so far would be a venetian plaster idea with joint compound and dye, painting the plywood and coming up with a pattern of contrasting wood battens to look like trim, taping the plywood seams and skimcoating, any other thoughts?

[Sibley]

To my knowledge, assuming you're using the kind of plywood I'm familiar with, there's nothing you can do that will look good long term short of covering it. You may be able to wallpaper it (not sure it'll stick). Why don't you get paneling? It's fairly inexpensive and the paneling isn't very thick. You can get various types, or you could paint that.

[BudgetSlasher]

What is in the wall and does local code require a thermal barrier on this wall (generally 1/2 drywall)?

If you wanted to minimize space you could always use 1/4 drywall or some sort of decorative panel over the drywall.

The kinds of plywood/osb I can think of that are at the local big box store and actually rated for structural purposes would take a fair bit of work to look good (in my opinion) or function as a smooth base.

Have you looked to see if there are options that can be used other than plywood to meet earthquake standards? For example tension strapping.

A quick Google says there are 8 bracing methods for walls under the IBC, perhaps one of those would be acceptable for your interior shear wall.

[affordablehousing]

Here in CA the general practice is 5-ply 1/2" sheathing nailed to studs, mudsill and top plate every 3 inches. This runs me flush to the inside edge of the kneewall foundation, which has the tendency to weep water on super rainy days hence my apprehension of covering the foundation or furring out and covering it below. It doesn't need to look finished in the traditional bathroom sense, just cool. It will be a basement bathroom after all, just an extra spot to take a leak.

[BudgetSlasher]

Does every wall in CA need to be braced as a shear wall?

Trying to google shear walls is a deep rabbit hole for someone who does not live in earthquake territory.

But, it seems like shear walls are designed as part of the house in order to resist the shear forces the house can reasonably be expected to encounter. Given that I would think that the interior wall you are discussing would not need to be built as a shear wall. If it is an existing frame that you are covering it hasn't been a shear wall and if it is a new wall and doesn't bear load, perhaps it could be viewed as a partition wall that doesn't impact the load of shear forces of the house.

[grobinski]

Why not just sheath with AC hardwood ply and poly, stain or paint it directly? You could use battens the add some interest if you want it. I think a vapor barrier between the framing and the ply might be in order.

[Papa bear]

Skim coat the entire wall with topping and then paint it. Should look close to regular drywall.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sisto]

Can you spray texture either drywall material or stucco material on it? Then prime and paint it. Seems you could get a decent orange peel finish.

[Sibley]

Here in CA the general practice is 5-ply 1/2" sheathing nailed to studs, mudsill and top plate every 3 inches. This runs me flush to the inside edge of the kneewall foundation, which has the tendency to weep water on super rainy days hence my apprehension of covering the foundation or furring out and covering it below. It doesn't need to look finished in the traditional bathroom sense, just cool. It will be a basement bathroom after all, just an extra spot to take a leak.

Um, "a tendency to weep water on super rainy days"? That's not actually good for your foundation buddy. You got some work to do outside, making sure that water is draining away from the house.

[J Boogie]

Forum team, I'm looking for suggestions. I'm installing a basement bathroom, and at the same time will be installing plywood sheathing on the interior wall to provide shear wall bracing (earthquake country). For various reasons it would be great not to add any more wall thickness beyond the plywood and I was wondering if there was something I could do to finish the plywood that would make for a cool looking bathroom finished wall.

Some ideas so far would be a venetian plaster idea with joint compound and dye, painting the plywood and coming up with a pattern of contrasting wood battens to look like trim, taping the plywood seams and skimcoating, any other thoughts?

I would buy some pre-primed faced plywood paneling. You get the easily paintable characteristics of drywall with the shear strength of plywood. No need to get weird on this one is my take.

[affordablehousing]

Definitely bad for the foundation, definitely been happening for a 100 years, definitely still has plenty of mass per the structural engineer. This is actually an interior wall that is being sheared as part of a larger structural assembly to mitigate the soft story condition of the garage opening at the end of the room. Rather than pour new footings and install a significant moment frame, I opted to shear the four walls and ceiling of the garage, and will add a second rear sheared wall to demise the new bathroom that should add to the rigidity.

I'll probably pursue just a topping coat and paint. I have a dustless drywall sander already so it shouldn't be too hard to smooth the skim coat out. Thanks all. Yes, earthquake retrofitting seems pretty arbitrary when you only get to test your methods sporadically, and there's a million conditions if you get beyond the standard crawlspace situation.