Open Forum

My staff and I are looking at replacing our worn out homemade wall system and wondering what others' experiences have been with purchased wall systems vs making your own.

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Maureen Kelly Jonason
Executive Director
Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
Moorhead MN
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Hi Maureen,

I love Mila walls. I've used them in 3 different museums. They're really flexible, they're easy to put up and take down, and they look great. You can also repair and repaint them. They're also expensive at about $1k/panel. If you've got the budget for them, they're amazing. 

I've built a bunch of temporary walls for my current museum that are a little more finicky, harder to put up and take down, but look pretty good, are super strong and stable, and cost 5x less. They're 4' x 8' x 3" and weigh about 100 lbs/panel. The wall is made up of metal studs, covered in 1/2" MDO (which is plywood that has a resin coated paper applied to the surface, making it perfectly smooth.) The walls connect together with coffin locks (also called panel locks or roto locks), and I put adjustable feet on them. I've had them in all sorts of configurations in our galleries: 2 panels in an "L" shape, 4 panels in an "L" shape, 8 panels in a zig zag, etc. They can easily be installed by two people, or one person and strategic use of bar clamps and spare bases/vitrines.

The raw materials for each wall is less than $200. Each wall takes about 5 or 6 hours to go from raw materials to painted and ready to go, mostly because the coffin locks need to be mortised inside the wall itself. 

Do they look as good as Mila walls? No, but they get the job done and aren't distracting. I figure if people are paying more attention to the walls in the museum rather than the objects, stories, panels, etc, then I haven't done my job very well. I'd be happy to send you a parts list and some drawings if you want to go this route.

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Zach Row-Heyveld
Exhibitions Manager
Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum
Decorah IA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2019 10:28 AM
From: Maureen Kelly Jonason
Subject: New Walls

My staff and I are looking at replacing our worn out homemade wall system and wondering what others' experiences have been with purchased wall systems vs making your own.

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Maureen Kelly Jonason
Executive Director
Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
Moorhead MN
------------------------------

Hi Maureen,

We have used a variety of different walls over the years here and had a lot of coffin lock walls come in with traveling exhibits but we have found that the Mila Wall system works the best. We have been using them for over 20 years here and have built them in many different configurations. One of the nice things about the system is you can put doors in so they work great as a temporary construction wall. They are pricey but the investment pays off in the long run. They go up quick , are easy to build and can be done by one person , although two people make it easier of course. We have over 100 wall panels and they store easily on rolling carts that can be purchased from Mila Wall. They are sturdy, paintable and you can hang paintings, objects , even monitors on them. They are our go to wall system. Please let me know if you have any other questions about the system that I can help you with.

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Joel Marquart
Exhibit Operations Lead Technician
The Franklin Institute
Philadelphia PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2019 10:28 AM
From: Maureen Kelly Jonason
Subject: New Walls

My staff and I are looking at replacing our worn out homemade wall system and wondering what others' experiences have been with purchased wall systems vs making your own.

------------------------------
Maureen Kelly Jonason
Executive Director
Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
Moorhead MN
------------------------------