My Freestanding Indoor Bouldering Wall.

I do so enjoy climbing rocks and imitation rocks in my free time. And, presently, I am forced to reside in Southeastern Georgia. One may then infer my problem; there is nowhere to climb where I live. And so, I set out to build my own climbing wall! I found some similar projects online that I found helpful for motivating me; so I figured I would post mine as a courtesy to others. I am renting, so I didn't want the wall to touch the actual house walls anywhere. The result turned out to be extremely sturdy regardless.

Here are some shots of my room before I started:

Notice the classy wood paneling, the fact that there is no door (this is supposed to be the den), and my unique method of putting dirty laundry on top of an empty hamper. You can see the first few lengths of wood on the floor. I didn't really do much planning before starting this project. I had in my head about what I wanted, and I measured the size of the room. Then I went and did calculations with my buddy while standing in front of piles of lumber at the hardware store. The room is 12'x15' with 8' ceilings by the way.

A shot of the materials in my back yard (There is a cool bamboo grove in the background - shame it was dark out.):

I ended up buying one more sheet of 3/4" plywood and some more 2x4's/2x6's along the way as my plans changed. Note: I had never really built anything before, and I built this almost completely by myself- getting help only to hold up plywood for the roof sections.

The total cost of lumber, tools (since I had none - includes a drill and saw), nails, other miscellaneous items and a Gatorade was about $800. Not too bad I guess. I could have planned it a lot better and borrowed tools to save some money. I still have some wood that I will probably make a bench or something out of.

Step one: Framing.

You can see here I have one long wall, and an L-shaped section (to nestle my computer desk into). The L-shaped part stands on its' own, and the long wall is braced to the 'L' with 2x6's. I thought about using bolts or metal hangers for the top part, but ended up going with lots of screws instead. Because I had them on hand. The blue cooler was my stool. I'm 6'1" tall, but the 8' ceiling is plenty of height for this wall - I was a bit worried about that. I did end up using some hangers on the inclined portion, fearing the stresses (compounded by the terrible angles the screws were at) would be too much. Here is the finished framing:

I realized partway through installing the plywood that I needed some light, having removed the only light in the room because it got in the way. So I wired up some track lighting real quick where the old light was. The handholds seen on the plywood (picture above on the right) were for carrying it around and holding it up. A quick note: be sure to pound your T-nuts in as firmly and straight as possible. It sucks when you accidentally pop one back into the wall never to be seen again. Also, don't buy T-nuts from hold dealers, they can be found much cheaper elsewhere (3/8-16 X 7/16 is the size you want). I used about 500 for this wall and am left with tons of hold placement options.

Step two: Slap on the rest of the plywood, and you have the wall as it stands today! I planned on filling in the cracks of my shoddy craftsmanship and painting it with some texture, but a combination of laziness and impatience to climb (I was already bolting up holds to climb on that would have to be removed) worked against that idea.

Thank goodness for automatic image stitchers. The first one is warped more than it probably needs to be, but I had to do the chubby Buddha justice. I have a mix of holds from Metolius, Nicros and e-Grips. The e-Grips are my personal favorite, added to by the fact that they have awesome customer service. I thought about making my own, but it seems like a lot of work.

Here are some action shots of me(in the jeans) and my roommate:

There is more vertical wall than I would like, but I wanted to maintain my living space. Other than that I really enjoy it. It's solid as a rock. If you have any questions/comments, post 'em and I'll get back to you.