Drywalling the dining room walls and ceiling

Justin wastes no time: banging on the walls minutes after buying the place

The very first time we walked through the house, Justin could tell that something funky was going on with the living room entryway, and it just kept bugging him. So what was the VERY first thing he did after we bought the house? Tear into the wall, of course. When he did, we discovered that at some point, this entryway had been reduced in size (or it was enlarged early on and then put back to its original size, it's kind of hard to tell). This was obvious because of the way it was framed, and the fact that it was covered with drywall while everything around it is lathe plaster.  

Since the previous patch job on both sides was pretty bad, we removed the drywall. 

The living room wall, after removing the previous owner's poor patch job

The dining room wall, after the patch on both sides was removed

We also opened up the wall on the other side of the entryway (see photo below), but this was not to fix anything. Rather, we used this space to create a raceway for the new second floor electrical cabling (more on that later).  

The area where we built the electrical raceway, with some lath still attached

Justin and his Dad inspect the ceiling

Remember when the ceiling went boom? Here it is again, in all its naked glory. We needed to drywall that, too. Thankfully, Justin's Dad, Brother, and Cousin all came to help install the drywall. They used a lift to install the ceiling.

Newly-drywalled ceiling and walls awaiting joint compound tape

The original plan was to run a 5" oak crown around the ceiling (hence the gaps). However, time didn't allow for milling the crown prior to moving in, which left a lot of gaps to be addressed with "creative" mud work.

Drywall joints, taped and mudded

Over two days, Justin ran three layers of "hot mud" (20 minute setting type compound), and two layers of tape in the joints where the ceiling meets the old lath plaster walls. The setting compound is heavy, and takes a lot of presure to pull across an inside joint. During the process, Justin tore his right rotator cuff slightly, which made the subsequent sanding much more difficult (although for better or worse, it did not stop him!). 

Justin preps the shop vac for cleaning up after sanding

Upstairs hallway wall repair

The living room and dining room were one thing. But the worst sections of the lath plaster, by far, were in the upstairs hallway. Remember when I said that the first thing Justin did when we bought the house was to knock a hole in the living room wall? Well, the second thing he did was to knock a hole in the stairwell wall.

Justin measures the area to be drywalled.

This section of the stairwell wall was bulged out really badly and had a very poorly done patch.  We tried to remove just a small section, but instead, it all came down.

Oops.

The ceiling section was also really bad but instead of taking this down, we decided to just remove the loose sections of lath, then build a lattice over it, and attach our drywall directly to that.  

The stairwell ceiling, with lattice attached, awaiting drywall.

We also removed a few additional wall areas. There was so much plaster to take down, Juniper even gave us a hand. 

Our resident handygirl.

"Take that, wall!"

Removing this area gave us the opportunity to check out the plumbing that goes to the bathroom.

The wet wall, AKA lots of plumbing

Below is the hallway wall between the bathroom and Juniper's room. We took this down so that we could complete the raceway for the 2nd floor electrical. It also gave us a good look at the chimney for the furnace.

The chimney, and space to run electrical wires.

Once everything was down and cleaned up, it was time to drywall. 

After running the electrical, Justin finishes up the hallway drywall.

Almost finished: new drywall on the stairwell ceiling, righthand wall, and wet wall.

There is still a lot of sanding to do, but at least the walls are buttoned up now!