Renovation project - How to box in pipes or cables

Renovation project - How to box in pipes or cables

We have a number of pipes and electric cables that can still be seen throughout the house, this is something that we both hate, here in this part of France quite often when a house is rewired (professionally) the electric cables are hidden by trunking, this is plastic covers that run from plug sockets and light switches around the rooms, this I think is even worse than having wires on display.

John has made sure that all wires and water pipes are in the corners of the rooms so all can be hidden.

We still have some old doors in the garage and John uses these for the boxing in. The ply is perfect.

First he saws off the edges, so that he can see inside the doors, the insides are made of honeycombed cardboard. One side is carefully removed and then the honeycombed cardboard is scrapped away.

We now have two good sized pieces of plywood (this is very expensive to by)

A wooden baton is added to the wall and insulation is added, this is important, especially if your water pipes are next to an external wall, it also helps with noise reduction.

The ply is then cut to size and attached by panel pins (or screws).

This is painted and any joints are sealed with decorators caulk (again this is not easy to find in this part of France) and is one of the few things that we do stock up on when we visit the UK.

Once completed and painted the same colour as the room, the boxing in disappears. This is so simple to do and yet makes a major difference to the final appearance of the room, and as we said if you can recycle items the cost is reduced further.

Big tip, never throw anything away until you are completely finished, even if it means there are piles of crap all over the property!