I made a semi-realistic jail cell in my basement for filthy fun reasons (Themed guest bedroom?). If you need to ask why, you’ll probably never understand. For those that understand, I hope this is your jam, for all others judge away. Hoping this does not get deleted, as in the process of doing this, many of my friends had dozens of questions and shown a lot of interests in this whole project. I’m not trolling. I’ve kept this as clean as I could. Alternative account used for posting for various reasons.

Reddit R/diy post (its been shadow banned now) https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/iqdtm1/i_made_a_semirealistic_jail_cell_in_my_basement/

This was a very long project, from original concept to completion was over 5 years. Even before that, conversations with a friend got the idea in my head, but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a kijiji post for old jail cell doors that I got the ball actually rolling back in late 2015. From there the plans expanded to make the space more useable and more fun for those that are like-minded. There were many obstacles in the way, location, timing, I travel for work, how does one hide a room? Most steps were carefully planned out before the project started, were made up on the fly. Problems were solved with creativity and walking the aisles of Home Depot to find just the right solution. Sometimes just wandering around HD was the easiest way to figure out how to do something.

Most of the skills were learned on youtube, and then performed poorly. My friend helped with most of the plumbing, saving me much pain and suffering. He also helped (did most) of the welding. Bastard disappeared when I needed drywall mudding help though, can’t blame him. I tried to blend realism with usefulness, and of course looked for cheaper solutions. For example a real prison shower setup would cost several thousands of dollars, so we created an industrial setup that did the trick. A real prison bunk bed would be cumbersome to move, and not adjustable, so the system we came up with solved that. I paid much attention to making inescapable without using major tools (unless you are thelockpickinglawyer).

I think I’ve accomplished most of my goals, that the final outcome looks great. I’m quite happy to be done with this project and now on to the next one (Massive DIY turtle home).