How to create faux concrete walls?

[object22]

Does anyone have experience creating walls for a room that look like concrete? I need to build a small room with moveable concrete walls. My first thought was to use regular luan flats and then put a really thin layer of concrete on them or perhaps put a wire mesh on the luan then the concrete on that so it will stick, but im still worried about weight and keeping it smooth enough so doing some sort of creative paint job would probably be better. Any idears?

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Does anyone have experience creating walls for a room that look like concrete? I need to build a small room with moveable concrete walls. My first thought was to use regular luan flats and then put a really thin layer of concrete on them or perhaps put a wire mesh on the luan then the concrete on that so it will stick, but im still worried about weight and keeping it smooth enough so doing some sort of creative paint job would probably be better. Any idears?

You can experiment with epoxy and sand. I don't know how large an area you need. But it will be lighter than either real(tm) concrete, or even plaster+sand. You can get foam board and a light frame to give it some stiffness. To give the result a matte finish, you'd powder the 'wall' with sand. (As a note... this is from 35 year memory... )

However, one of the 'tells' on this sort of trick is if there is a 'knock' on the wall, like a door closing, and the wall wobbles... the illusion is burned...

Alternatively, take high res shots of a 'real(tm)' concrete wall, then have a photo service blow them up, mount those on the foam board.+frame.. set the aperture of the camera such that the walls are a bit out of focus...

 

[David W. Richardson]

You might consider this...

http://www.polyvore.com/concrete_wall_grey_textured_vinyl/thing?id=11911069

 

[MKatt]

The cheapest way to do it is to mix sand with matte paint.
I recommend smooth pebble.

 

[paulears]

Polystyrene block, when painted, looks amazingly like concrete. Here we have interlocking block wall formers in polystyrene - builders pour in real concrete into the voids to produce real walls with built in insulation. These blocks build like lego, and then you could paint them grey?

Risk assessments on fire issues, allowing.

 

[NVentive]

I've got a friend in the haunt industry who has dome some amazing things with sheets of insulation foam and tempera paint. Cheap, fast, and petty darn convincing even up close.....

 

[Michael Carter]

I did a music video with foam insulation sheets to make a square cell - I watered down dark grey latex and sprayed it on with an HVLP gun. Really looked like cast concrete (you have to peel the coating off one side).

I hot glued it to 2x4 frames; we actually had one wall that clamped in place and had a ceiling mounted camera looking down. Framed a small "window" in the back wall and lit through it. Came out really cool, well under $100:

 

[daniel5]

Does anyone have experience creating walls for a room that look like concrete? I need to build a small room with moveable concrete walls. My first thought was to use regular luan flats and then put a really thin layer of concrete on them or perhaps put a wire mesh on the luan then the concrete on that so it will stick, but im still worried about weight and keeping it smooth enough so doing some sort of creative paint job would probably be better. Any idears?

You can experiment with epoxy and sand. I don't know how large an area you need. But it will be lighter than either real(tm) concrete, or even plaster+sand. You can get foam board and a light frame to give it some stiffness. To give the result a matte finish, you'd powder the 'wall' with sand. (As a note... this is from 35 year memory... )

However, one of the 'tells' on this sort of trick is if there is a 'knock' on the wall, like a door closing, and the wall wobbles... the illusion is burned...

Alternatively, take high res shots of a 'real(tm)' concrete wall, then have a photo service blow them up, mount those on the foam board.+frame.. set the aperture of the camera such that the walls are a bit out of focus...

Yeah that's what I would do too.