[BEDROOM BOULDERING CAVE]

12/18/06

My goal is to create a bouldering cave in my apartment bedroom. My initial ideas are as follows:

- The apartment walls must be left untouched
- Pullup bar on doorframe will serve as anchor points for two main beams and reduce shearing
- Adding internal diagonal or X supports will further reduce shearing
- Running design through a static simulation program is a good idea

12/19/06

My visualization:

12/21/06

Another rough conceptual sketch to scale

Board Name	Type	Qty	Length	End 1 Angle	End 2 Angle

B	2x6	2	6'10"
H	2x6	2	2'
J	2x6	1	2'4"
K	2x6	2	7'6"	45 inwards	45 inwards
L	2x6	2	2'
A	2x8	2	13'
C	2x8	2	5'4"	63.5 inwards
D	2x8	2	1'8	26.5 inwards
E	2x8	2	8"	26.5 inwards
F	2x8	3	2'
G	2x8	1	1'8"

This cool kid named Jarad at Home Depot cut the lumber for me (unfortunately they didn't have a diagonal saw). He spray-painted the ends of the small boards and got me a discount (51 cents per board) but even after that I shelled out 68 bucks.

And it begins!

12/25/06

I decided to extend the ceiling to twice the width and add extra supports to the right side. This will give me enough room to add extra walls if I decide to later on.

12/26/06

I bought some more tools (a hand saw, drill, 3 inch course-threaded screws) plus some more lumber totaling $125. I'm going to use 2x8s instead of 2x6s for the left wall as to make everything consistent. I am now $193 into this project.

Handsaw? I was going to borrow a small circular saw from my friend... but it would be too noisy to use indoors and would create a huge mess. Plus, the point of this whole thing is to build strength, so why take an escalator when you can use the stairs?

And many hours later...

That thing is damn solid. Left wall done. Time for food.

12/27/06

Right wall done as well as the anchor to the pull-up bar. The beams are held up by 1/4" bolts. I can already climb across the whole thing and I hear no signs of creaking wood. There is minimal wobbling of the left wall due to the missing cross-supports between the beams, but because of the pull-up bar anchor the wobbling is parallel. The cross-supports will definitely fix that, but that's tomorrow's job.

12/28/06

I stopped keeping track of my expenses. It seems I am running out for materials everyday. My guess is $300 so far.

Jon suggested a stalactite so I left work half-an-hour early to see what I could come up with. I think this will work pretty well.

12/29/06

Most of my time went into trying to set up an automatic door opener that I got from Stanley Access Technologies (from when I worked there). My plan was to make a little door for the closet that I could also climb on. A door opener would be overkill, but I might as well use it for something, right?

I got the whole system working but realized that I put the opener on the wrong side. I switched the parts around in haste and I paid for it... I plugged something in wrong and one of the tantalum capacitors blew... pink noxious smoke filled the room and I had a headache for the better part of the evening. The opener bar was also below my height (6 feet) so I would have banged my head on it anyway. It was a cool idea... but it failed.

I ordered some Chinese food, watched Scrubs for an hour, and then did some framing. I added small beams attached to the room's studs. Though one of my goals was to leave the walls untouched, this made the whole structure A LOT sturdier. The only thing that I am "iffy" about is applying large forces to the sides of the stalactite.

Here's a video

12/30/06

Fixed the problem with the stalactite's sideways wobbliness by adding a brace between the close 2x8 beam and the ceiling. Now everything is solid and I am completely satisfied.

Built the door... I'll put it in tomorrow.

Instant artwork :)

12/31/06

Today I installed the door and started building the sloped back wall. I also decided not to put up the diagonal ceiling (beams "K").

1/3/07

Finished sloped wall. A few touch-ups and the framing will be complete.

1/7/07

I won a whole bunch of different types of holds (85 to be exact) plus 200 T-nuts off of eBay for $125. Not a bad deal.

I'm waiting for those to arrive. They should get here in a week. Once they do I can start putting up the plywood. In the mean-time I tried making a hold from a piece of granite Jon found outside my building. It took about 45 minutes to drill a quarter-inch hole through the middle with a conventional (now destroyed) spade drill-bit. I put it on one of the supporting walls with a 1/4" bolt... a comfortable jug.

1/10/07

I bought a carbide bit and made some more holds while I waited for the fake ones to arrive. Would the rock dust technically be called dirt?

1/18/07

The past week I've been working long hours on the USS Albuquerque, a US nuclear submarine docked in Groton Connecticut. The box of holds that I ordered arrived the same day I came back... good timing. The next day I went with Jon to buy 3/4" BCX plywood. I had it cut to the dimensions I wanted and I even had time to put up a few panels.

I used a 1/2" bit to make the holes for the T-nuts. It shouldn't make much of a difference.

One of the ceiling panels filled with T-nuts. I eyeballed the spacing, and its good enough for me.

And there we go.

1/21/07

Right wall done.

1/26/07

I drilled the holes for the three large panels of the back wall. I was bored with the idea of making a grid... so instead I came up with a pattern that makes the hole placement look more chaotic. The distance between the holes doesn't change much because all I did was rotate every 16"x16" square by 45 degrees.

Is this a rock wall or another planet?

Here's everything in place. It was a pain in the ass to get all of these guys to fit. Happily, it looks like one continuous sheet.

1/31/07

All the plywood except two sheets on the stalactite are up. I also received notice that I was causing a noise disturbance... don't worry neighbors, I'm all done with the banging :)

2/9/07

I am done with the construction!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

2/11/07

I started the last leg of the project at 11:00 pm last night... painting. I bought a gallon of sandstone 100% acrylic deck-paint as well as a roller kit. I wanted a color that was aesthetically pleasing and that also matched the carpet incase some dripped onto it. Paint gets everywhere anyway, so protecting the floor was step one.

Yeah. I got this far and the damned handle on the roller snapped off. Being 11:15 at night I couldn't go out and get a new one so I was forced to paint the whole thing without a handle. Pain.. in... the ass. It definitely tested my grip strength endurance.

The following day I went back to Sherwin-Williams and showed them what happened. I asked if I could trade in the broken, used roller for a paint brush (as I now only needed to paint in the corners). After some convincing, they gave me this:

What the hell! All I want is something with a handle. I guess this will do.

Jon picked up the landing mat... $150 for a 4' x 8' x 8" mat is not a bad deal at all. I got it through a friend's friend's husband's friend who coincidently owns a gym. It also made for a good bed as I slept in my living room away from the paint fumes and toxins.

2/13/07

YAYYYY! Officially completed!

TOTAL DAYS: 57

TOTAL COST: ~ $950