remodeling for geeks

Cornerbead Finishes

Cornerbeads are the metals that protect and define your spaces when working with drywall. In remodeling as well as new work, intersections where beads meet, can be tough to blend. Case in point is the Guest Bath Towel Storage opening.
Opening
Here is the raw opening for the towel shelf. Because the wall already has an existing texture and the back side of the opening is rough, I will use 5/8'' 'J' bead to frame in this opening.

Bead
Here is the opening with the bead in place. It looks smooth, but the corners are not perfectly flat in relationship to each other. Because there is no backing behind this opening, I elected to glue the beads in place with PowerGrab, the best construction adhesive ever.

Prefill
To eliminate the elevation difference problem, I prefill the corners with mud, at a 45 degree angle to the corner.

Note: Here is where 5 minute speed set shines.

Starting from the inside of the opening and mudding onto the wall, I now have a smooth corner for the next coats. What is not shown in the photo is the mud that gets trapped on the bead inside the corner that you must remove.

Fill Coat
Here is our opening with the tape and mud in place. Using USG Dust Control mud, our new best friend in remodeling. I now have a flat face and a smooth inside corner without any ridges that would make this look bad. I am a bit anal about this because regardless how straight your walls are, how well you taped, having twisted, ridged, beads looks bad.

Here is our opening with the texture applied prior to painting. It will look great.

You can do this yourself. A little time and care, your house will look like a million bucks.

Fireplace Freshen 4

The Fireplace Freshen Project is headed toward the finish line.
Here are a couple of detail photos.
This is a closeup of the work we have been doing on the window openings.

Here is a midrange shot with a different window treatment. This is a Redi Shade. Billed as a temporary window treatment, it provides light and privacy. This is up to think about a horizontal treatment for these windows.

I like Redi Shades. Most of my windows at casa lemurzone are covered with them. Someday I will replace them something else, maybe.

Round Cornerbead Application 2

In our last episode on Round Cornerbead, I detailed the steps for using it on new work. Removing square cornerbead to replace it with round bead on existing walls is a major project that I don't recommend unless you are really determined.

There are a few areas where it can be used on existing work. The Fireplace Freshen Project used it on the new construction, to good effect. (everybody who has seen it has gone 'wow')

The windows surrounding the fireplace are awkward. They have sharp corners. A lot of thought has gone into different ideas for covering up the windows. But this has been more to disguise them while allowing light through.

Making Square Round
We are going to change that. This is an area where we can change the lines without having to do any demo work. Make no mistake. There is work involved, but it will be worth it.

Here is our opening which is pretty much standard in the Southwest, for aluminum windows. The window openings are wrapped and the windows are applied from the outside.

Our 'trimless' opening has enough room to allow us to apply drywall to the opening without compromising the operation of the windows.

Taping the work area
Our good friend, 'blue painters tape' is used to cover the exposed window frame, to make our taping easier to clean up as well as forming a line to paint to.

What is not shown in this photo is the tape at the wall intersection in the corner. We are going to skim coat these walls also.

Drywall Application
We measure and cut our drywall so that it is narrower than our opening by a little more than a 1/2''. We do this so we can leave a thin gap on the window side to allow us to slip in 1/2'' L bead on the window side and to be able to apply our round bead on the wall side so that it will lay flat against the existing wall. I mentioned this back cutting in our first look at rounded corner bead.
Remember the radius grasshopper.

Also on this type of application, we are using Power Grab to glue the drywall to the opening. The nails are only used to hold the drywall in place.

Cornerbead Application
The installing of the beads are standard (measure twice, cut once), and we are also using Power Grab behind the beads to apply them to the wall. Nailing is standard to secure the flanges.

Taping the beads
On square corner beads, I suggest only doing one side of the corners in any session. This eliminates the tendency of the mud to roll and chunk on the other side of the corner, creating more work for you, especially if you are not going to do this for a living. On round bead, you can do both sides in the same session as there is enough space between the two angles to allow you to fill and/or coat in the same session.

Skim Coating
The existing walls around the windows have texture on them. We are skim coating them to blend the walls. I have more about Skim Coating here.

Note: On this project I am using speed set for the first coat on the walls and on the cornerbeads. It's about not spending more time on this than necessary. Your mileage will vary and you should take your time.

Coating with eggnog
I am using the USG Dust Free mud for the finish coat. It is the color of eggnog in the box, it's my blog and so I am calling it 'eggnog'. You can call it anything you want. In any case it is what they should have invented 30 years ago.

How dust free? Here is the floor and corner of one side. The floor is covered with red rosin builders paper. Regular mud dust would have covered the floors and walls and would still be floating around. I took this picture about 5 hours ago.

How dust free? This is the fireplace opening about three feet away. Regular mud dust would have made this almost white. Yeah it's that good.

Fireplace Freshen 2

Here is the face ready for primer and paint. The fireplace door guy was by and measured for the fireplace door. About 4 weeks out.

Dust Control Drywall Mud Progress Report
This is for Jenni at 1311Vernon and Jennfier at Tiny Old House
Why didn't they invent this stuff 30 years ago? At least I get to use it before I die.
Good Golly Miss Molly. This is the greatest stuff for remodeling since Loctite Power Grab.
The photo below shows the dust from sanding the side wall from the ceiling to about 2 feet from the ground. I took this photo about 10 seconds after I got through sanding. Regular mud would have been spread to hell and gone, and you would have seen noting but white dots obstructing the photo. It sands like a dream, clumps and falls to the ground as advertised.
Look at the blue tape line where the trim meets the wall.

Here is a closeup of the same area. I am using sanding sponges for sanding. I am using them dry. The stuff sticks together and drops to the ground. As an added bonus, look at the bottom of the bullnose bead. See the overage? When I use the knife as a chipper to knock most of this off, it comes off smoothly. Regular mud and speed set has a tendency to fracture, and pull out chunks.

The only thing that you need to watch for is that it does fill up the sponge quickly and does need to be 'tapped' clean. A small price for the lack of dust and white boogers that regular mud sanding causes.
This is gonna make Smoothwall skim coating a pleasure...relatively speaking of course.
Why didn't they invent this stuff 30 years ago? At least I get to use it before I die.

First Paint Coat

Dust Control Drywall Mud

Taping and sanding drywall are two of the messiest parts of any remodeling project. Sanding is especially nasty as until recently dust control was a real problem. Not anymore. The other day I mentioned that I was trying a new product for taping drywall.

USG, who literally wrote the book on drywall has come up with a new product.

Sheetrock® Brand Dust Control Joint Compound

This is amazing stuff!! It spreads smoothly, shrinks very little, sands like a dream and does as advertised. Dust clumps and drops to the floor. I will never use any other premix product for taping ever. It's that good!

Fireplace Freshen 1

Fireplace Facelift
This is the before shot. There are few things uglier than painted brick. This is an unusual fireplace as it is not centered in the room by about 5'', and has some pretty awkward windows. The idea of covering or removing the windows was rejected as the light is an important element of this room. This fireplace originally was a wood burner, with an arched opening. The client remodeled it years ago by switching it to natural gas, adding the brick surround, and installing the fireplace door. At the time, this was much more cost effective as the cost of a glass fireplace door custom built with an arched top was at the far side of obscenely expensive. Even more so today, but that is a moot point.

Demolition
First things first. Removing the hearth and brick around the fireplace. The vertical blinds were bagged as the decision for window treatments had not been made. The floor was covered as the client has more of the floor tile and it was going to be filled in after we got the facelift done.

Construction Note
If you are going to tile and may remodeling in the future, buy extra tile. Patterns, colors, and styles change constantly. Just ask any of the house bloggers who have been looking for plastic tiles or subway tiles for doing restoration.

The floor in front and to the sides is also covered with 5/8'' chipboard, which to me is one of the few uses for the stuff. It helps to corral all the busted brick. With the brick removed you can see the original arch of the fireplace. What is not shown is the steel angle used as a header for the brick facing. We are going to reuse if when we square off the opening to support the brick face before we begin the facelift.

Facing
Since this is a covering and the fireplace is brick, we are using 1 1/2'' steel studs. (Yes they make 2x2 steel studs, but you need to find them at a drywall supply store as the big box home improvement stores only stock 2x3'' and 2x4'' stel studs and track. We are also leaving a 1'' gap between the brick and the face. This eliminates trying to use wood and concrete nails or Blue Screws to try to make the face flat. It also covers the 3/4''dip in the brickwork.

We have extra studs in the wall as the client has some large artwork which will end up on the wall.

Construction Details
The vertical and freestanding valances are finished with Bullnose corner bead to soften the corners. The corners next to the walls and ceiling are finished with 'L' bead, as the walls have been recently re-textured and painted. The ceiling had the popcorn removed and a light skipcoat applied.

Valance Detail
The valance area is open for the lights that will be mounted on the backside and area for the fabric panels that will be built to cover the windows.

The yellow mud you see is not bad photography, it is a recently new product from USG called Dust Control taping compound. It comes premixed the color of eggnog, and it is a thicker consistency than other premixed mud. Anything that controls dust during construction and remodeling is good by me. We shall see how it works.

The opening for the fireplace door is wrapped with a concrete board and finished with a quick set mud.
Monday the fireplace door guy will be by to measure for the door.

Master Bath Project Episode 6

The framing, plumbing, and the electric work is done. So some of the drywall gets hung. The cabinet maker was here for his dimensions, and the solid surface folks got their numbers, and made their templates for the custom shower pan.
Here you can see the insulation and the blocking in place for the grab bars that will be installed after the shower is finished.

Here is a view into the shower. The bottom sheets of drywall will not be installed until after the shower pan is installed. It would have been nice to get the pan done before the drywall, but equipment breakdown, and scheduling conflicts created this. There are always surprises in remodeling, and this was one. The solid surface guys had even more surprises in store creating more delays in this project.

We used 'green' board in the shower and in the vanity area. Due to the details for the shower, we could not complete drywalling in a number of areas.

We have filled in the area in the window covering the bottom row of glass block and drywalled and taped the bathtub area. We also skim coated the walls where the old tub surrounds were.

Meanwhile we were able to drywall the pony wall by the toilet as well as skim coating those walls.

The current plan is after the shower pan is in, waiting 24 hours for the glue to set, I will drywall, bead and mud the shower area so that we can texture, and paint so the solid surface guys can return and install the rest of the solid surfaces.

Master Bath Project Episode 5

In our last episode we were getting ready to do some drywall. We will get around to it, but first a couple of things. Wasted space drives me nuts. Short Drive, Never Mind. The client is a fan of storage also. See the Walk In Closet Project.

The Makeup Counter
The back wall of the shower is 48'' wide giving us this deep hole. About 28'' between the shower and the bedroom wall. Now we knew that we were only going to put in a 20'' deep counter, which would leave about 20 or so inches of dead space behind that wall. Notice that on the bedroom wall beyond the pocket door frame there is a 22'' space between the corner and the next stud. We decided to put a cabinet in that wall facing into the bedroom.

So we went to the home improvement store and picked up a ready made cabinet. Cut a hole in the bedroom wall...

And installed the cabinet

Meanwhile back in the bathroom, we framed up the new back wall, including blocking for the surface mounted mirror, the romex for the mirror light, and the pocket for the small medicine cabinet. Here we needed to dry fit our surface mirror to determine it's center visually as the right side has the door of the medicine cabinet sticking out 3/4''. The devil is in the details, between a good project and one not so good.

We then insulated the whole thing. In this case the insulation is more for sound control that it's insulation value.

That doesn't hurt either.

We then went forward and began drywalling this area. We will be insulating every wall we opened. Some fiberglass and some foam board. On the right side of this photo you can see where we are beginning to insulate the shower area.

The foam board is used over the exterior brick wall whose 'studs' are 2x2''s.

We are doing only a partial drywall as we are waiting for the solid surface guys to show up for measurements, which is why the shower area is not getting drywalled now.

Remodeling Construction Notes

Bathrooms are one of the nosiest rooms in your house, and are usually next to the quietest rooms, your bedrooms. Insulating the walls is only a few bucks and the sound dampening effects make it worth the investment. Bathrooms are hard surfaces which bounce sounds everywhere. Anywhere you can break up the paths with pony walls, corners, or sound absorbing materials ,(keeping in mind the humidity) will pay you back in a quiet environment.

Electric Box Drywall Repair

One of the common occurences in hanging drywall on a casual basis is cutting out for electric boxes and other holes you may need. Yes, you measured, you cut or sawed and you still missed the box.
Here is a box with the most common problems.
The upper left and lower right corners are damaged from the corners of the box breaking the drywall, when installing the sheet. The left and bottom of the cutout are too large and will not be covered by a standard cover plate. Yes you can use an oversize plate, but is the cost worth it?

The first order of business is to project the box and in this case the outlet. Bring out the blue tape. Carefully tape and cover the box/outlet so that you will not fill the box up with mud during the repair.

Second, remove any loose drywall and paper.

Now we prefill the holes with mud. Speed Set aka Hot Mud is the best solution, as you can put multiple coats on and the shrinkage is less. Regular Mud will work, but puts you on a 24 recoat cycle.

Next we tape and coat our opening. In this case I am using mesh tape. I am also feathering the mud.

Re coat as necessary, so that when you are sanding prior to painting, you are sanding everything. Feather your edges beyond the last coat so you end up with an 'invisible' repair.

Prime, Paint, screw down the outlet, attach the cover.

That is all there is to it. Happy Patching!

The New Temporary Workshop Episode 6

I have been otherwise engaged which puts this on the back burner. But I do have an Update.
Now that I have water and ice on tap with the refrigerator, and yes I rescued the silverware out of the drawer, I have been working on the workshop.
My son stopped by and gave me a hand hanging the ceilings in the workshop and the utility room.
I have been taping up a storm.
Installed and taped the cornerbeads and the L beads that I placed on the insides of the window sills and around the doors. This back wall is plywood so that I can hang anything anywhere. On the right side of the photo is the window that goes into the kitchen. The outlet box contains Cable, Phone and Network Cabling.

I placed the majority of my outlets 48" off the floor, as this is a workshop, and I am tired of bending over.

My soffit is still open as I still have a bit of wiring to do for the various switches.

The Utility Room which was originally going to be a 4x8' pad for the reefer and water heater is drywalled. I have a fresh air vent for the heater which is gas.

The reefer alcove was not a deep as the water heater opening, so I built an alcove on the back side for shelving for the rest of the crap that will end up in here.