Monday, December 2, 2013

Drywalling

In our effort to have our bedrooms inhabitable by winter, we've spent the last couple weekends focused on drywalling the guest room. We had an interesting discussion with our neighbour about the history of finishing rooms. Many years ago there was a shift from plastering to drywalling. There were various advantages to drywall: plaster was prone to cracking as it dried out or as the house's foundation shifted and it took a skilled hand to apply it correctly so the wall didn't appear wavy. Initially, drywall was hung using nails, not screws like today. With unavoidable environmental shifts nails had a tendency to occasionally pop out and also didn't hold the drywall sheet as securely. Kind of interesting to see how things evolve.

By the time we left on Sunday, 95% of the guest room walls were covered in mould and water resistant drywall.

I've hung drywall before, but I've never mudded it, so I watched a video yesterday about how that's done and learned an interesting fact: drywall should be hung horizontally, not vertically like we did. Hanging it horizontally makes it more stable since it crosses more studs and also reduces the seams by 25%! Not only that, but horizontal seems are much easier to mud since you don't have to bend over. Figures we'd hang it the wrong way. Next weekend should be fun.





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