What to do with these walls?

[Brian Zaug]

Fellow investors,

I have duplex which has an apartment on the top floor that is in pretty bad shape.  It is rented but the rent is well below market rent  because of the overall condition.  They pay $900 monthly and the updated apartment downstairs pays $1150.  I am slowly renovating this apartment but it's hard because they live there with an 8 year old. 

The tenants told me that they will be away for 3 days at the end of March.  I want to use these 3 days to renovate the kitchen.  I need to replace the cabinets, put down some LVT flooring, skim coat and paint the ceiling, but I'm unsure what to do with the walls.  They are plaster, which is in pretty poor shape with wall paper over it. 

I was planning on using 4 x 8 mdf beadboard paneling and gluing/nailing it right over the wallpaper and plaster.  I think this will be the fastest and most cost effective way clean up the walls.  Originally, I was going to go over it with 1/4 inch drywall but with taping, sanding, priming, painting, I don't have that much time.  The last problem I foresee with 4 x 8 beadboard paneling is that the ceilings in this apartment are 9 feet tall.  If I install the paneling from the floor, it'll be a foot short on top.  If I cut off a foot of paneling and add it to the top, I'll have this unsightly seem a foot from the top going around the entire kitchen which I don't want. 

I'm certainly open to any other idea.  Would I need to pull off all the baseboard and door/window trim If I decide to panel the wall?  It's 3/16th's inches think....I don't mind taking the baseboard off but the window trim is in really good shape and I'd like to try and save it...

Thanks for any help.   Really appreciate it..

[James C.]

Brian, 

Hang your beadboard from the ceiling not from the floor. That way, at least in the areas where there are base cabinets,  the seam is hidden behind them. Another option is to cut your beadboard at chair rail height (it will take a bit more material) and hide the seam with a piece of moulding to create the chair rail.  Painting the beadboard below the chair rail one color and above another is a nice touch. The combination of seam behind cabinets and chair rail should work ok. Heck, multiple seams behind cabinets wouldn't even be noticed. You can also do a 45 degree angle cut to minimize the seam showing.

I think you can get away with not pulling baseboard and window moulding.  Get some 1/4 round or other moulding to take up the space between the edge of the beadboard and the existing moulding. 

For other, more involved, but nicer finished product options:

If you can get the wallpaper off (or most of it) you may back able to skim coat it and paint. It might be tight in 3 days, but it would solve the issue. 

Another option, albeit a potentially messy one, is to remove the plaster and lath and go right over the studs with new sheetrock. This is especially good if the plaster has begun pulling away from the lath  which it sounds like might be doing.

If you get a sheet rock crew in there it's easy. One day demo, one day to hang and tape #1, day 3 to final coat. Painting can be done ad hock with the tenants permission. 

If you have a big enough crew you can demo and hang the same day. The crew demos room 1, then they split, half hang the other half go to room 2 to demo that. 

Either cut your lath at the window moulding and butt up against it (easier, but the sheetrock comes partway out on the moulding ) , or remove the lath from behind and slip the sheetrock in behind (harder, and you sometimes have to remove the moulding). You may have to put the odd stud in to get it to work.

BTW sanding drywall isn't the way to go, do multiple thin coats and wet sponge as necessary to flatten it out. Also, use the widest blade you can find.

Hope some of this helps.

Good luck, 

Jim