Rock Climbing Wall

When it comes to sensory needs every kid is different. My little man is very active! When we first bought our home, my husband and I didn’t really think about what was safe for kids, big mistake. My son is a climber, a good one! He is very precise and makes sure not to hurt himself, but I was having mini heart attacks on a daily basis. So to distract him from climbing the banister, I decided to create a rock climbing wall in my basement.

Just like everything else I do, I began my research. There are so many different ways to build a rock climbing wall. I bought a book, explored Pinterest and the internet, then finally came up with something that would work. More importantly I came up with something my husband wasn’t going to go completely crazy about. I have a lot of ideas and projects I want to do and he usually gives me the same look “how much will this cost and are you serious”. I promised him it wouldn’t affect the integrity of the house and could be removed without having to redo the drywall. Not sure if I truly convinced him or if he just wanted me to stop talking about it.

Either way, here’s how I did it.

The first thing you need to do is measure the area you want to use. Go to HomeDepot and decide what type of wood works best for you. There are a lot of options so take your time. I used a sanded plywood. I knew I was going to paint the wood so a lot of factors didn’t matter.

Then you need to find all the studs in that wall. You can use a stud finder to locate them. A trick I was told was to look for raised nail heads. As your house settles you can sometimes be able to see them very clearly. Another trick to use is to use a thin nail to test the location. All you need to do is slightly tap the nail into the location. If the nail goes all the way through, you do not have a stud in that location.

After you have your wood and your studs located, you are gonna drill the wood to the wall. Making sure to drill into the studs. You’ll need an extra set of hands for this part. Someone to hold the wood in position and another to drill. I enlisted the help of a friend named John or “McGyver’ (he’s amazing) who does this type of work for a living and was kind enough to help me. The wall that I chose had piping that I was too afraid to damage in the process. I didn’t want my spur of the moment project to effect the house. My husband was the other set of hands, which worked out nicely for me.

Once the wood is attached to the wall, you need to drill in the climbing handles. I used these https://amzn.to/33XujfC I wasn’t able to use hardware that came with the handles because of the way I set up the wall. So instead I used wood screws I had in the garage, John had made me a tool box filled with goodies for occasions like this. Be sure to choose screws that are the right size, you don’t want to to drill through the wood and into the actual wall. Make sure to space them with your kids ability in mind. My munchkins are still pretty little so I arranged them closer to each other to make it easier for them.

I wanted the wall to have texture so I thought back to high school art class. We worked with modge podge on a project once. You basically take tissue paper and crumble it up to give it texture. Use the modge podge to glue the tissue paper on to the wood and add more on top to seal it all in. When its dry it is great for sensory seeking kids, and it looks cool.

Because the climbing handles I chose are made of plastic I needed to prime them before painting. I actually had some primer left over from a previous project, and used it to prime the handles as well as around the handles to help everything blend in.

Time to paint. I definitely had a vision in mind. I wanted the wall to look nice in the room, like it was supposed to be there. So I thought, Mountains, beautiful to look at and appropriate for climbing. I used different tones of grey to create the mountain scape, having a little background in art definitely helped. I used a few of these spray paints to give the mountains more texture and depth.

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