As with any project, things do not always go as planned. The best intentions don't always
work out. We had lined up a drywaller months in advance and talked to him the entire time
that we were building keeping him updated on the status of the house. When it came time
to get the drywall ordered in and do a walk through with him, the drywaller didn't show
up for appointments & wouldn't return calls. We had three weeks to come up with a
drywaller. Even though it was the end of December,all of the drywallers that we called
were booked solid and couldn't take another job. Finally the person that we hired to dig
our basement and septic system suggested three people to call. All three drywallers were
very interested and in the end it was very hard to decide which one to go with. Each of
them had a week free in their schedule that they wanted to fill so that they could keep
their crews busy. We had to make sure that we had everything done by the time that they
were ready or we would miss the "window of opportunity" and be left with out any drywallers
again. We finally picked one and scheduled everyone to start.
Being the begining of January would usually indicate that the ground is frozen. So it
should not have been a problem to drive the drywall truck up to the front door so that the
drywall could be unloaded into the house. Unfortunately, we had one week where the
temperature got up to almost 50 degrees and created a mess. It ended up taking two days
and a bulldozer to get the drywall truck up to the house so they could unload the drywall.
Here is the bulldozer pulling the drywall truck out of the mud.
The drywall is unloaded from the truck by using a lift on the truck and positioning the
drywall near a window. The window panels are then removed from the window frame and the
drywall is slid into the house and put into the room where it will be needed.
Here are two views of them unloading the drywall.
Once the drywall was in the house, it took very little time to put the drywall on the walls
and ceiling, also known as hanging. 16 and 12 foot sheets were screwed into the walls and
ceilings.
"Hangers", (the people putting the drywall up) usually put a sheet of drywall up on the
wall and then cut out doors and windows afterwards rather than measure and cut before
hand. Same is true with outlets and lighting fixtures. Glue is applied to the studs
before the drywall is put up to help secure the drywall. It took about three days for
the hangers to put the drywall up in the entire house and the garage. After the hangers
were done, another crew came in and carried away all of the scrap drywall that by this
time was piling up all over the house.
The next crew that comes in are the finishers. These are the guys that fill in all the
joints and make corners look nice and apply the ceiling texture. When you decide on a
drywaller, talk to them about how they finish drywall as this is what you are going to
see the most when you are living in the house so you want to be sure of what you are
getting. Try to stick with people that use metal corners.
Here are the metal corners on the entrance to the living room.
The plastic corners are cheaper and easier to put on, but the corners of the walls are
going to take a lot of beatings, so you want to make sure that they are tough. Also find
out how many layers or coats of compound they apply over the tape and corners and how wide
they apply it. If you have a corner and you only apply one or two coats of compound
3 or 4 inches in either direction from the corner, you will have a wall that is flat until
the corner where it suddenly humps up to go around the corner. If each coat is applied
so that the distance from the corner is greater each time, it will be a gradually rise to
the corner and not an abrupt change in the wall. After each coat, the finishers will sand
the plaster down to insure a smooth finish. This will create a lot of dust in the house, so
don't leave anything out that you don't want dirty! After the walls are taped, plastered
and sanded the ceilings are usually finished with a texture of some sort. Some people
choose to have a "Rose Petal" or a "Sunburst" centered around a light fixture. Some
people like a "stiple" look where you have little pieces of plaster hanging down from the
ceiling.
We chose to go with a "fresco" type ceiling, where the plaster is applied to the
ceiling smoothly in random patches. The plaster does not cover the entire ceiling and
looks very strange until it is painted.
Here is a view of the drywall after it has been taped and sanded.