Once we got past all the plumbing, electrical and HVAC work it was time to start wrapping this baby up (on the inside, at least). I always tell my clients that getting to the “drywall” stage of a project signifies a big turning point. You get to say goodbye to all the rough and ugly stuff and move toward the pretty and polished stuff. My wife was VERY relieved to be making this turn.
It was time to do some drywalling.
All the drywall in the house was in rough shape. There were bad spots from old water damage, big sections that got torn out/beat up during all the demolition and lots of cracks as a result of leveling the house. We also had to cut half-a-million of holes to run new pipes and wires.
It was time to make all this ugliness disappear. My guys and I repaired and/or replaced drywall as needed in every room.
Since the beginning of the project, we planned on not having any texture on the walls and ceilings. Although it is the norm in our part of the country to have textured drywall I have slowly grown to hate it over my years in the remodeling business. I now just think of it as subtle visual clutter. Not necessary.
So we went with smooth drywall (aka… level 5 finish). It is very common in commercial construction but not so much in residential. It takes a good drywall finishing crew and more time but the end result is worth it. The walls and ceilings have the look of a plastered wall rather than drywall. It took a week and a half and 50 something boxes of mud but they got it done. And we loved it.
Side note…Notice the Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling? Those were my improvised jobsite lights. We had just gone off of daylight savings time and I was desperate. My prime work hours were 5PM-7PM and the time change hurt my productivity…badly.
Of course the jobsite shenanigans were still ongoing…The kids couldn’t resist checking out the cool makeshift scaffolding that was built in our stairway…
As I remember…somebody (Hix) really almost fell off this scaffolding right after we snapped this picture.
Call it what you want…
Choice A. Poor parenting
or
Choice B. Letting curious kids explore their surroundings
I choose B.
Next, we moved on to cabinets.
We went real simplistic in our overall design. Simple lines, not much trim, nothing fancy, classic shaker style doors. The one place we did splurge…inset doors. Again, something that cleans up the look, in a subtle way.
We put lots of thought into the interiors of the cabinets to maximize their functionality. We were very pleased with how they turned out. (Thanks Perry Vavra.)
Next up…trim, doors and paint….and removing the scaffolding in the stairway before I have to explain myself to CPS while at the ER.