More Drywall

So, you might think that progress has come to a screeching halt on the house. You wouldn't be quite right. It does feel like things have been moving pretty slowly lately, but they are moving... Plus we were on vacation for a week and a half in Oregon which meant missing two weekends of working on the house.

Anyway, we're still working on getting the drywall finished in the house. We finished most of the bedroom, which was mostly the closets inside and out and included soundproofing the wall between the master bedroom closet and the existing bathroom. We have a steel tub in that bathroom and the noise from the shower water hitting the tub is quite loud. In order to do some soundproofing, without sacrificing any space to a thicker wall or staggered studs, we filled the stud bays with insulation and additionally placed sound dampening board between the studs. It is now MUCH quieter when the shower is on. Once there are clothes in the closet and closet doors that can be closed we won't be able to hear a thing.

We left drywall off of the wall between the master bedroom and master bath. The only reason is because we only have natural light to work by and we haven't finished the drywall in the master bathroom yet. Once that wall is covered it will be fairly dark in there and the heat generated by 500W work lights isn't the most pleasant during the summertime.

This past weekend we started on the drywall in the master bathroom. We're using fiberglass, moisture resistant drywall. There is no paper on this stuff that could absorb water or support mold growth. The downsides are that it's fiberglass, so it's itchy, it's heavier and it's pretty flimsy (even though it's the same thickness as the other stuff). This last part presented the biggest problem when trying to hang the ceiling pieces alone. It took a good portion of the day just to figure out a clever way to raise the drywall to the ceiling and support it in place while it was screwed in.

We did finally come up with a method involving a door hinge, an 8 ft. 2x10 and an 8 ft. 2x4. One side of the door hinge was screwed into one end of the 2x10. The other side of the hinge was screwed into the top plate of the wall about 3/4 of an inch down from the ceiling. This left the 2x10 hanging down to the floor. Then we could lean a full sheet of drywall against the 2x10 and lift the drywall by lifting the 2x10 underneath it. Because of the hinge, this swung the drywall up to the ceiling supported down its center by the 2x10. Once it was up to the ceiling we could wedge the 2x4 under the far end of the 2x10. The drywall could then be maneuvered into just the right location and attached to the ceiling joists.

This enabled us to get the ceiling drywall hung. Prior to that we replaced the drywall in the hallway to our master bedroom. The old drywall on one side (used to be the kitchen wall) was pretty beat up. Since I overestimated the amount of drywall we needed by 5-10 sheet I figured it would be easier to replace it than to fix it. It also allowed us to replace the old electrical that was in the wall that services the outlet and light fixture in the existing bathroom.

We still need to finish the drywall in the master bath along with soundproofing the wall between that bathroom and the dining room. There are also lots of places where the ceiling drywall needs patching - all the places where there used to be walls. Once all the drywall is hung it's on to mud and tape and then working on finishing the bathroom. The bathroom will involve floating a shower pan, tiling the shower and bathroom floor, installing the vanity, plumbing the sinks and installing the toilet.