Building the Homestead: Final Week Before Move-In

We’re coming down to the final few days before the trailer is sold and we move in to the house—ready or not.

Hanging the drywall was a big job. But taping the first coat was harder. My son-in-law came out and helped me, which made a big difference. But even then, it still took us several days (I’m an amateur), as you can see form the schedule below. I’ve been using Excel to plot out what needs to be done and when it must be completed. This has helped me stay focused, especially as we’re coming down to the end.

Taping Drywall

Taping is both art and craft. The book I mentioned (“Drywall. Professional Techniques for Walls & Ceilings” by Myron R. Ferguson), was extremely helpful in laying out a reasonable approach to taping. I did it in three coats:

1. First coat: Using joint compound, cover all screw holes (it’s easier to hide if you combine screw holes into one line rather than covering individual holes). Used mesh tape to cover all finished (long) joints and laid a thin layer of mud over the top, feathering the edges (both walls and ceilings). Laid down a thin bed of mud on short (butt) joints and then embedded paper tape. Paper tape is stronger than mesh tape. Then do the corners by laying down a coat of mud on each of the walls in the corner and then embedding folded paper tape. Feather the edges but there’s no need to cover the paper tape at this point. I used a 5” knife (rounded the sharp corners of all knives). The first coat should be about one knife wide on all joints.

I don’t have any pictures of the rest of the process, but it goes like this:

2. Second coat: This uses the most joint compound, but it went quicker than the first coat. Lay down the filler coat, about two knives wide on a) screw holes (be sure and scrape off most of the mud and feather the edges), long finished edges, short but joints, and corners. I used a corner trowel for corners, which worked best for me, but you still have to feather the edges with a 5” or 9” knife. (I called in a friend who used to be a professional drywaller to help with the second coat because I was overwhelmed. I’m glad I did. His work was much better than mine).

One thing I did wrong was take a bit too much off the long edges when I ran the knife along the wet mud. I failed to anticipate that the mud shrinks when it dries. So, now that I’m finished painting (see below), I can still faintly see some of the long joints. Should have filled in a bit more and not scraped too much off, or done more on the third coat).

3. Light sanding: If done right (if you don’t use too much mud), you really don’t need to sand much. Had another friend show up and offered to help when I was beginning the sanding job. So, I handed him the sanding pole. He did a fine job. Took just a couple hours to sand.

4. Third coat: Used topping (light mud) for this coat. By this time, I was anxious to move on, so rather than do everything a third time, I went around and filled in where needed.

5. Final sanding: When the third coat dried completely (it doesn’t take as long to dry as joint compound), I lightly sanded where needed. Done.

I estimated about 3150 square feet of drywall (including both ceiling and walls). Used about 11 boxes of pre-mixed joint compound and 13 of topping mix. Make sure and wear a mask when sanding. A friend of ours said she got “dust pneumonia” from sanding drywall years ago without a mask.

Texturing the Drywall

After taping everything off (windows, doors, shower, etc.), we began the texturing process.

I have a texturing gun by Marshaltown that runs off a compressor and has a large hopper on the top where you load in the mud. I used topping mud (the light weight stuff) and thinned it down to pancake batter (or chocolate cake mix batter, if that’s your preference) consistency, using a 5-gallon bucket, a paint mixer paddle and my heavy duty Milwaukee drill. I poured in the mud into the hopper and sprayed the ceilings and walls, setting the compressor pressure to about 30-40 psi. It makes a mess.

Texturing patterns are a personal thing, but there are two main patterns: orange peel or knock down. Also, whether the ceiling is textured the same as the walls, using a different pattern, or no texture at all, is a personal choice. I chose to do a knock down pattern both on ceilings and walls. It’s easier and quicker and at this point, that wins out every time.

To do a knock down pattern, you basically spray an orange peel pattern, wait a few minutes (not too long), then lightly run a long knife over the wall to knock it down. The results are shown below.

It did not turn out perfectly, as expected. A couple of places on the ceiling, above where I have my tools and supplies stacked on shelves, I sprayed too much texture. So, when I went to knock it down, there were a couple spots that was a solid mass of mud with no knock down pattern. I should have caught and fixed it then, but was too tired. It has become, along with many other artifacts, a monument to my imperfection.

By the time I was done at the end of the day, I was exhausted. The hopper filled with mud gets heavy after a few hours. Also, note in the above picture (to the right) that the laundry room was the first one I textured and I didn’t spray enough enough mud. Oh well. Connie assures me that I’ll be the only one who notices.

Painting: Prime Coat

While everything was covered in plastic, I got out the sprayer (Wagner 505 airless unit) and sprayed the primer coat. This is primer paint designed for fresh drywall and I highly recommend going through the time to do it. It was only about $50 for a five-gallon bucket, so well worth it.

The primer coat spraying went very well and pretty quick. I did both ceiling and walls. Used about 1-1/2 five-gallon buckets of primer.

Painting: Finish Coat

Finally! Tried to use the sprayer for the ceiling paint (flat ceiling pant) and it just wasn’t working well. My gun had worn out. But was able to limp along and finish the ceilings. Bought a new gun for the finish coat on the walls and it worked quite well. We painted the kitchen walls, the bath walls and ceiling and laundry room walls and ceiling with satin finish. The rest of the walls were painted with eggshell finish, a couple shades darker.

Just went out and took some pictures after we tore down the plastic. On the suggestion of a friend, I used a small piece of vinyl siding with a straight edge cut along one side to shield the ceiling as I sprayed the walls. It worked pretty well, but I’ll need to touch up several places on the ceiling and walls, which we’ll do tomorrow.

We started painting the finish coat at about 6:00pm Saturday (yesterday) and finished in the dark. So, when we went out to look at it today, we could see some places I missed. It was a big day yesterday: We sprayed the ceiling, sanded the floors with a floor sander to clean up the drywall splatter and take down some high edges from the OSB sub floor swelling (should have used Avantech!), picked up 23 sheets of 3/8 plywood for underlayment where hardwood flooring will eventually be, 22 sheets of backer board for where the tile will be, then painted the finish coat. Whew!

Move-In Preparation

So now we finish what is needed to move in. The list below shows what’s planned for the next few days. The trailer is gone on Thursday and we will definitely move in to the house.

Visit by the Grandkids

As mentioned earlier in this blog, our daughter and son in law, their children, and my son came down to help out a bit, which I greatly appreciated. I wanted to share a couple of precious memories from that visit.