Drywall, We Bow Down to You

About a year ago, Joey and I received our first of many drywall deliveries.

And we began drywalling and mudding. To date, we’ve drywalled a mud room, a half bath, a full bath and two bedrooms. And as we journeyed from room to room, we discovered that drywalling is not our forte. It takes us weeks, if not months, to complete the task of hanging the drywall, taping it, mudding it and sanding it. Overall, we’ve done a decent job considering that we’re novices. However, that whole ‘decent job’ thing dissolved in front of our eyes when we began working on the master suite. We meant to do a good job. We thought we were doing a good job. But as we rolled the texture and paint on to the primed drywall, it screamed “You suck at this!”

So, how bad is it? I have to be perfectly honest with you. (Come on, Liz, you can do this. Take a deep breath and just say it)

You can see the tape on our drywall. Through the texture and the paint, you can see the tape. Oh the horror!

What kind of DIYers are we that we allowed such a thing to occur…and to remain. Here’s an example…

We designed the master bath to have an angled wall. Here it is drywalled:

And here’s the finished product:

Not too bad.

But take a closer look…

…and there’s the paper tape we used to cover the corner of that wall. (We tried avoiding this ugly-corner situation with a premade metal corner piece that would have created a lovely edge, but due to a nailing block mishap, we couldn’t get the metal corner to attach to anything.) Yuck.

Every time I walk by the “Hey, what’s that strip of stuff running down your wall?” tape, I can hear the drywall haughtily laughing at me, reminding me that I lack the know-how and finesse to tame it.

(Wow, I’m starting to realize the I might sound like a crazy woman. Is it normal to start personifying parts of your home after a year of remodeling?)

Anyways, for so very many reasons, it is in the best interest of our house and ourselves that we refrain from doing any more drywalling. So, the unbelievable has happened. WE’RE HIRING SOMEONE! You have no idea of the joy and elation I feel when I type those words. I am so giddy with excitement that I can barely keep my hands steady enough to type this.

Now, let me say a few words in defense of doing your own drywalling. It’s a relatively straightforward project that IS doable for a homeowner. If you have a smaller space that needs to be drywalled, I urge you to do it yourself. Plus, there are so many great textures you can apply to your walls to hide any flaws, which takes the pressure off a bit. Just use a thick texture, like the one below, which we used to camouflage repairs we made to our cracking,uneven plaster walls:

We discovered this texture…

…a few months ago and it’s quicker and easier to apply than the one you see above, but it only hides very minor flaws.

I had heard that drywallers are notoriously expensive because the work is time intensive. We haven’t hired many people to help us, so I don’t have much of a comparison, but our drywaller charges $1.50 per square foot (that’s with us supplying all the materials. His price goes up to $2.00 per square foot if he has to buy the drywall and mud). Some drywallers will charge you by the hour, which makes me nervous because it’s hard to know exactly how long a job is going to take, especially when you’re dealing with the surprised-filled architecture of an old home. He’ll be drywalling a small bedroom, our hallway, our foyer (which requires scaffolding) and our kitchen for about $2,000.00. I would much rather save that money by doing the work ourselves, but at the same time, I know we’ll be better off when it’s time for us to sell our house. I have a sneaking suspicion that potential buyers won’t find strips of tape on the walls too charming.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with drywalling and/or hiring drywallers.

P.S. We turned the water on in the new shower. For approximately 20 seconds. And it seemed okay. Maybe next week I’ll actually bathe in it. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

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