Garage walls with black plastic
For the past 6 years, our (my daughters and I) haunted garage has had plastic vis queen walls, always a maze along with us and her school buddies hiding inside, within specially designed hiding places (typically 2ft x 2ft cubes, around corners).
Materials have included (for a 20 x 20 garage):
2-3 large rolls of plastic sheeting, 2-3ply (thin), black, usually about 10 ft x 50 or 100ft, what ever is on sale a Menards, Lowes or Home Depot, a large utility type stapler with 3/8" staples for attaching the plastic to both walls and ceiling (inner walls), yes you will either remove the staples after or just leave them in the walls and ceiling (this is being changed this year, see below). Now, without anything at the bottom of each wall, the wind blows through the garage and moves the bottom of the walls, not good. Also, the fog does not stay in the halls. So, I have used handmade sandbags on the bottom of the walls, it worked, holding the walls down, but the people moving through would move the wall bottoms when they were scared. So, the past two years I glued 2" by 2" bits of wood to the floor at ends and center of walls and then stapled the bottom of the walls to the bits of wood. This stopped the walls from moving, but the scaredy cats would dislodge the walls from the bits of wood, also the sometimes the top of the wall would also become unstapled, due to both bottom and top of the walls being afixed with staples. There was no room for movement due to scared people pushing them.
This year I and my wife are working earlier (starting last week) with this year's haunted garage, including a new way of constructing walls inside the garage. I have developed the concept and will be constructing this weekend. Here it is, I'll post images later today (it's 5:41AM now, a bit too early).
I will use:
1" x 1" 8ft and 10ft long wood trim board (cheap and light) used for both top and bottom of each plastic sheet wall panels (also cut 8ft or 10ft wide)
same vis queen material described earlier
1/2" and 2" drywall screws or "barn" screws (preferred, they have 1/4" head, instead of phillips and are driven by 1/4" socket plus they have large washer already installed on them)
many small "S" hooks and "O" hooks, used to connect top boards (top only) to ceiling hooks and wall screws
many individual links from 2 or 3 feet of light chain (again I'll provide images)
Measure your garage walls, pick a typical width for the maze corridors (24" or 32", add little rooms for special surprises, your kid, their friends or a bench (with your 72 yr old father-in-law dressed up with a 'Jason' mask, that was great last year), a bottomless pit (constructed from plans from this site, last year). I plan each maze using MS Excel, or graph paper, with my daughter (she's the boss of the show), and save each plan each year so I do not repeat floor plans.
Once you have your measurements, you can estimate the amount of materials you need. Now, here where the fun starts.
A plastic wall panels are cut 12" longer (up and down) then necessary and drape on the ground, this is true for inner maze walls as well.
You screw the barn screws along the top of the garage walls, I am screwing a 2" barn screw every 3ft, to hook the top board of the outer wall panels, giving each 8 or 10ft panel at least 2 fasteners. Leave each outer wall screw exposed about 1/2", this is to hook the wall panel on. Now, use screw an "O" hook into the top of each outer wall top board matching the wall screw placement. I would also mark the outside facing panel with a number so that each panel can be easily rolled up at the end of the season and reused each year.
The inner maze wall panels will be dangling from the ceiling, using 2" barn screws ever 2 ft or so (and at corners). Same bottom treatment as outer walls. The fixtures for the inner walls will be 2" Barn screws into ceiling holding link from chain, 1/2" Barn screws into chain link atop the wall boards, then use "S" hook through each link (ceiling and top board) to hang the board to the ceiling. Again, I will provide an image to make this clearer.
After you have hung the outer and inner walls take the 1" x 1" boards and roll the bottom of each panel until the plastic panel is just touching the floor or a bit above. The bottom board will keep the panel flat and straight and will absorb the push from the scared people, and just return to normal dangling above the ground.
All of the wall and ceiling screws and hooks can be painted the color of the garage, so they are not so apparent during the year, also, they are ready for next year. It will take a bit of time the first time, but every year after, the walls are ready to be unrolled and hung in a matter of minutes.
My garage ceiling joists are 16" on center, so I am considering having 32" wide corridors from now on and placing the ceiling hooks in a 32" x" 32" grid. This should, once installed, provide a never changing hanging system where I can leave the ceiling hooks where they are and change the maze design every year.
