How to Make a Wall Out of Aluminum Cans for Your Unfinished Basement

You don't have to spend a fortune to turn your unfinished basement into a livable space. If you need privacy, or simply a way to section off specific areas in your basement, you can make walls out of aluminum cans that are both functional and nice to look at. Not only do these walls help to give you privacy, but they are also big crowd pleasers. Your friends will be talking about how creative and ingenious you are for coming up with such an idea!

Before you start working with aluminum cans, you will need a piece of wood like a 1x1 that measures the length of how far you want your wall to be. You can also use a curtain rod or dowels as well. Have a friend help you hold the wood to the ceiling to mark a straight line across the studs of the ceiling so you can hang the wood. This wood will be what your aluminum can panels will hang from. Once your studs are marked, screw hooks large enough to hold the wood into the studs.
Now, you'll need to gather up a lot of aluminum cans. Save the soda cans that you and your family drink. Ask friends and relatives to save theirs too. You'll need several cans. You will also need to make sure that you wash your cans thouroughly inside and out to get any residue out of them.

You'll now need twine and a piece of wire. Cut a piece of twine that measures the same length as your floor to your ceiling plus the length of two soda cans. The twine is what you'll use to hold your cans together with. The wire can be cut from an old wire coat hanger. Make sure that the wire is straight, and that is measures the length of about a can and a half. Using masking tape, tape the end of the twine to the end of the wire. Make sure the tape is secure. This will be necessary when running the twine through the can.

Next, you'll need to go through each can and poke a hole directly in the center of the top and bottom of each can. This is to put your twine through. You will want to poke the hole in as near the center as you can possibly get so that the cans don't tilt when they are placed on top of one another. Also, make sure the hole is large enough that the twine and wire together can fit through them.

Run your twine through one can using the wire as a guide. Continue doing this until you have enough cans, end to end, to reach two inches from the rod or piece of wood you've adhered to the ceiling. Remove the wire from the twine. Once you've reached this point, get a nut or washer and tie the end of the twine to it so that the twine doesn't escape back through the cans and all of it fall apart. Now tie the remaining top portion of the twine into a loop that you can easily slip over the rod. You have made your first line of cans.

Continue with this method until you have made a wall, slipping each loop over the road and pushing the twine as closely together as possible without causing the cans to bow. You want each line of cans to hang freely, but be close enough to not allow for many gaps.

It is attractive if all the cans are the same type (i.e. Coca Cola cans, Mountain Dew cans, etc.), and is eye appealing without painting them. However, if you have several different cans, or just don't like the look of them unpainted, you can spray paint the cans with a high gloss enamel paint before poking holes in the bottom and tops of the cans. Make sure you follow the directions on the paint cans and allow ample time for the paint to dry. It isn't necessary to paint the very bottoms or tops of the cans because these will be hidden.