First Time Hanging Drywall Alone and Building Trailer to Haul It

This was the first time hanging drywall alone for us and building a trailer to haul it so that we could save money with this DIY project and not pay for delivery!

Since Nate worked so hard to demo and remove all of the drywall, insulation, and vapor barrier; it was time to rebuild it all again with new materials this time! This little old gem was starting to get her much needed face lift now. How exciting to finally get some new, clean, and fresh walls!

Nate was in the corner of the office and all you hear is the noise of a staple gun going to work. He was happy to share that he was putting up tar paper. I had no idea what that was or what it was for. 

The first thing he worked on was replacing the vapor barrier. He replaced it this time with tar paper in most places. There are a few differences between the two, but he went with tar paper as that was just based on some of the research that he did. It felt like it was the best thing for us to use.

There are different opinions on whether you should use vapor barrier or tar paper depending on what type of region you live in and if there’s more moisture or humidity and that sort of thing. So, anyways, we decided to go mostly with tar paper. 

We did also use vapor barrier as well. You can see here that we used Lowe’s vapor barrier. 

Then he also put in the insulation next and finally the drywall. And he was doing this all on his own, working by himself!

Normally you would place the moisture barrier (vapor barrier or tar paper) on the outside of the house and then put the siding over it. But, since our siding was already in place, we had to place it from the inside of the house instead. Umm yea, working a bit backwards. But hey, what’s new around here?!

HANGING DRYWALL ALONE

We bought this contraption to help Nate hang the drywall – a drywall panel hoist. He assembled it and went to work. There was a lot to be done! He had to measure and cut the drywall to cover every wall and ceiling. And then use this hoist to hang it and finally screw it in to keep it in place.

Well, if you want to build some muscle, forget the gym – just try hanging drywall! No wonder Nate got so strong working on our renovations. 

He was getting his drywall practice in our office as that was the first place he started all of this. And like with most projects around here, he was just learning as he goes. We are very new at remodeling and renovations. Nate has some construction background, but very little, so he was just doing the best as he could as he was learning as he went. 

Nate showed me how he insulated the cracks really well with spray foam where the siding met the ceiling. Before that there was all this light coming through the house and now it was all sealed up! And then he also put insulation in the ceiling in that area as well. He put beads of glue on the ceiling frame to hold the drywall in place. 

We ended up using cellulose blown in insulation in the attic to insulate the ceilings. However, for the ceilings above the bathroom and laundry room, we used the roll out insulation because there was not enough space in the attic for the blown in kind in those areas. 

There he goes using the drywall hoist to hang drywall on the ceiling. He was doing such a great job! I’ve never seen anything like this before. How cool to be building your very own home on your own! It’s hard work, but then you know everything about your house inside and out. 

He turned the lift wheel to raise the drywall up to the ceiling. Then he maneuvered it around so it fit exactly where it needed to and then he would screw it into the studs (or what I would call the frame) to hold it in place. 

It was really cool for me to see the process of hanging drywall! This was like a whole new world for me. I didn’t grow up around construction. I guess the closest thing I would’ve seen this would’ve been on HGTV or something like that. But nothing in my own personal home. So this was really eye opening and I have learned a lot myself throughout this whole process!

Now this job got really dusty when he made cut outs in the drywall for light fixtures, outlets, and other areas that needed to be exposed. 

As he was screwing in the drywall, he mentioned that he used a special bit for the screws because drywall is soft. That way you don’t go too deep and damage it too much. 

Nate started to move into the living room area to place more tar paper on the walls. We still had a long way to go! Slowly but slowly we worked on one project after another. Now we just had this whole huge wall to go! It was all coming together though. 

Can you believe that Nate thought we would actually have all the drywall done before we moved in? Yea, if we wanted to continue to pay rent and our mortgage at the same time for several more months! This was the pace he had to go working on his own and learning along the way. And this is another way we save money!

Wow.. He has also made a lot of progress in the office. Nice!

BUILDING TRAILER TO HAUL DRYWALL

One of the challenges we faced was how we were going to get the drywall to our house when we didn’t have a truck, didn’t want to pay to rent one, or pay to have it delivered. So Nate bought this little trailer to attach to our car so that we could haul drywall back and forth from the store to our house. 

It actually turned out to be a larger job than he thought to assemble it. He was thinking it would’ve been better off for him to have just bought a used trailer instead that was already assembled. But, the challenge with that as well was finding one you could pull with a car. 

After the trailer was assembled, it was time to place the hitch on the car to hook the trailer onto.

Gosh, Nate was learning how to do so many things for us. When he went on a test run, we could hear some rattling noises as he was driving the car with the trailer connected to it.

Well, as if we didn’t have to trouble shoot other things in the past. Just another thing to figure out as always. And we sure did figure it out!

Yay, there we go with the first delivery of drywall to our house – on our own! That was a good feeling. The great thing is that the hardware store is only a few minutes from our house. 

Hebrews 3:4

For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own. Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead!

You can also watch a video about this here.

To see more adventures of our tiny fixer upper journey, click on the links below.

🏚 CHALLENGES OF LIVING IN AN UNFINISHED COTTAGE 💧

📦 GETTING SETTLED IN UNFINISHED FIXER UPPER 🏚