Crazy estimate for drywall ?

[John Matthew Johnston]

I know this has been asked many times but what do you guys pay for drywall?

Estimate for drywall:

Kitchen Ceiling 13.7 x 7

Dining Room Ceiling 14x10

Living Room Ceiling. 14x10

Pantry Ceiling 8x10

Labor and Material:$3700.00

This is crazy high? I usually do my own work, I just hate doing Ceilings!

[Jim K.]

Originally posted by @John Matthew Johnston:

@Jim K. Your dead on, built in 1920, just ripped off all the old plaster haha. I don’t mind hanging it, just hate finishing it

Yeah, once that Rust Belt property virginity goes, nothing brings it back...

All right, John, here goes some 100-year-old construction drywall hanging and finishing advice for you and anyone watching. I know this is probably a waste of time, but hey, let's do it.

1. The most important thing is to get the studs level. Do not skip this. You use a 6-foot good-quality box level and a pair of block planes for this (one should be cheap beater quality and the other should be something like a Stanley 12-920 for finer work when you'll need it). Go lengthwise first on the studs. Four 1-inch deck screws and 2 heavy rubber bands will help you hang and stabilize the level's working edge against the ceiling joist so you can step back and look for gaps across the lebgth. I usually fill gaps with simple paper shims made out of painter's kraft paper rolls, stapled in with a manual staple gun (Arrow T50, tried and true). shave down rises with the block planes. Then you go across the ceiling at different points along its length. I do around every two feet. Ideally, having established straight joists here, it will be just a matter of shaving down sections of the joists with the block planes or cutting a custom-width shim off a 2x4 using your table saw and either stapling it in (thin) or screwing it in with 1-inch deck screws (thick). Very, very rarely you'll end up in a situation where you're going to have to reach into your bucket of 3-inch deck screws for an extra-thick shim. Occasionally, you're going to have to shave down most of a whole joist across the ceiling. The block planes will help, and having the sharpening stones and honing guides to properly sharpen them and the technique to use them well will help much more. There are loads of woodworking resources to help you online with this, but I use two double-sided Japanese wetstones in 1000/4000 and 3000/8000 with a Robert Larson honing guide for this

2. Once you've done good prep work on the studs, your hanging technique is going to be the same as it would be for any sort of ceiling. IF you are limited to 8-foot boards or in any situation where you can't run the boards fully across, take a look at this, John, for your ceiling butt joints. This article and the homemade back blockers it details has saved my butt multiple times in a number of situations. It really does work exactly as shown.

Fine Homebuilding, Butt Joints Article

3. For finishing, here's a 3-step process that includes pre-filling, a taping coat, and a finishing coat: You do hot mud for pre-fill with a four inch knife. Inside four-inch corner knives are also your friends. Once you're good on pre-fill, a lot of things fall into place. Then, again with the four-inch inside corner knife, you do pre-mixed unthinned USG greentop with composite tape for corners. I like the 2-inch Strait-Flex perfect- 90 stuff. Then you do fiberglass mesh tape on the joints, including those back-blocked butt joints. Yeah, you can do self-adhesive fiberglass tape with the back blocking described in the article, and it's truly beautiful. After the JC dries, you sand with foam-backed 100-grit, the purple 3M stuff is far and away the best. I use a (small) standard-sized rubber sanding block and cut foam backers for it from a 1-inch-thick sheet of regular upholstery foam. Drywall sanding devices are now far more trouble than they're worth for me.

Then it's USG bluetop for the second coat, applied with a six-inch knife and six inch insider corner knife, and let dry. When you sand the second coat, first knock down peaks with your finishing knife. Then go ahead with the sanding with a good flashlight held flat on the ceiling 18 inches back from the seam in your non-dominant hand and sand with your dominant hand. Your sanding will improve tremendously. Use the same sandpaper, backed by the same foam, in the same block. With time and practice in a pair of decent hands, a small sanding block modified with a simple foam backing in this way can be used with really remarkable precision. The 3M purple sandpaper will last practically forever in this application and do just fine sanding both "easy sand" types of joint compound and regular joint compound. It's a remarkable product for drywall and other paint-related sanding.

4. Vacuum up all the dust with your shop vac. I get by with multiple dust filters for mine that I rinse, dry, and reuse. I use my junky Harbor Freight vacuum for this. The filters will clog quickly and need to be replaced multiple times to maintain good vacuum suction. Someday I'll modify a 5-gallon bucket into a water filtration device for this to save wear on my vacuum, but I'm just too lazy and HF shop vacuums are too cheap for me to care much.

Good luck!