Reupholstering Cube Walls

So I just started here at (insert large IT company) and I was lucky enough to join a team moving into the new buildings on campus. I really wasn't feeling the plain gray and white cube walls in my part of the bullpen, at all. We decided to have a cube decorating contest amongst my team, so I took that opportunity to reupholster my cube walls. Looking around on the internet, I couldn't find any kind of guides or anything for taking apart cube walls or reupholstering them.. so I thought I'd make one, for all those of you out there wanting to know you're not alone in wanting to recover your walls.

The tools are common and easy to find in an office environment. Basic phillips-head screw driver (I found having two of these and a bored co-worker really helps), and a set of alan wrenches. Different cubicals require different tools.. but those are the only two I needed for taking mine apart. As far as the reupholstering goes: masking tape, fabric pins, scissors, and the fabric(s) of your choice. I also got fake grass, butterflies and some river rocks for my "atrium".

Step 1: Take it all apart

So this is probably the quickest and most fun step. Take apart the cubical!! Each cubical set is different, so because of that, I don't really see the point of describing it in detail. The first wall that you take apart will probably take you awhile to do, discovering all the tricks and what-not. But by the time you move on the second, it should just take a couple of seconds.

With my wall set, there were two screws in the top bar of each cube section. Once I removed those and the bar, taking the panels off was as simple as lifting them up a bit, tilting the bottom out towards me, and then lifting them all the way off. You have to remove the panels top to bottom, and the lowest panel is actually attached to the frame. I haven't figured out a way to remove it on purpose (one fell off on me when I knocked it on accident.. now I can't get it back on), but I found they don't really need to come off to reupholster them. The black cross bars are removed easily by removing two screws, and the vertical bars are just held in by a clip (no screwing required). If you're going to remove an entire cube section, you'll need the alan wrench to loosen four or so clips, which you can then twist up and slide the section out. I only removed a quarter wall from behind me so I can see my coworkers more easily, which just required removing a cross bar and two vertical bars. We did however remove an entire wall section across from us so we'd have a shortcut to our other coworkers.

Comments

[gopherhead89]

I am a professional office system installer and feel I should warn other people on the hazards of reconfiguring your cube . I know you were just reupholstering your walls however there may have been electrical componets that could have shut down your entire run of cubes (neighbors) ,data lines and other tricky items on the inside which could be hazardous to your job .your cubicle's manufacture is Herman miller which all the info is avaliable online .Please make sure everything is reconnected properly on it could injur or kill a coworker . I am not sugesting you are not able to do this on your own just be very cautious .

[tar3820]

Thanks for your comment. There was actually no electrical lines in any of these cube sets for my office's setup, something I made sure of before I started remodeling. For our office, all the lines were actually through the floor, which is annoying in several other respects. Checking for electrical lines is something that people should always make sure of before they start taking things apart, for sure.

[inventorjack]

Wow, you've done an awesome job of making a plain old boring work space into a place someone might actually find fun to work at. Hopefully your coworkers will do the same themselves. It's be great to see your entire office transform into a place of color and creativity.

[tar3820]

Thanks! My coworkers were a little annoyed at me at first, because I did all this in a weekend at the beginning of the decorating contest. They all got in the act after people would stop by our bullpen just to see what was going on with the giant leaves. We now definitely have the best bullpen in the building.