Drywall
Thanks to a great group of guys who stepped in and did
a tremendous amount of work, we were able to do the drywall ourselves. Thanks Norm, Gary, Mike, Chan! No, the sparkle in the picture isn’t snow….that
was all outside….it’s the camera flash bouncing off dust…
The attic was blown with 16 inches of dry cellulose
about two weeks after the walls were done.
We had to drywall the upstairs ceiling before the attic could be
blown. We didn’t turn the heat on until
after the attic was insulated to prevent the drywall from absorbing
moisture. If it gets damp it can get
wavy or even fall down!
Here’s the living room ceiling looking toward the
library and the front of the house. The
yellow metal apparatus is a drywall lift which we used to crank those big
sheets up onto the ceiling and hold them there.
A definite back and neck saver!
Here’s the same living room ceiling from the top of
the stairs.
And the kitchen viewed through Maura’s closet wall….
Watching the rooms take shape as the drywall went up
was very exciting! And such a relief to
see that the room looked better as its walls appeared! Here you can see (from left to right) the
half wall around the stairway, door to library, nook for window seat, and hot
water heater vent pipe. We need to find
an attractive way to box that pipe in!
We thought that the short hall from the top of the
stairs to the bedroom wasn’t quite right….not enough of a visual distinction
between the two so we decided to try a soffit to
divide them. We thought of dropping the
whole hall ceiling to eight feet but code required a smoke detector in that
location which we didn’t want to move.
So we made a mock up with cardboard….solid at first
(left) and then with a cutout (right).
We liked the cutout better so that’s how we’ll build it.
The drywall is hung upstairs, but it’s still bare
studs down below!
Bottom of stairs drywalled…..
Downstairs room drywalled. Note wrapping the LVL beam in drywall for
fireproofing.
All the trim was done with Trim-Tex bullnose. This
included outside corners, window returns,
doors,
and a picture rail material called bullrail. We put it
on as a single rail in the bedroom and library and doubled in the living room.
It cut easy with the chop saw. Good tools and know how make it easy!
Here’s the single rail we put up first…
Mudding in the top rail….
Fitting the bullrail around
the outside corners took a little tweaking.
This angled wall covers that vent pipe.
Vent pipe? What vent pipe? And the library door bathed in sunlight from
the window seat nook.
Here’s a look at the whole room from the top of the
stairs.
Yes, it’s winter. View from the bedroom window. Temp down to 13 below that night.
Left, bedroom door from inside the room, showing
single “bullrail” trim
above.
Right, bedroom door from living room, showing doubled
trim and cutout soffit.
Maura got some beautiful doors with arched top glass
and beveled glass diamonds.
They make a lovely display of light, shadow, and wee
rainbows.
