Hanging Drywall on the Office Walls Alone

Nate continued hanging drywall on the office walls alone with very little experience and mostly just learning as he did the project.

It has certainly been a drywall journey for us around here! And almost three years into these fixer upper renovations, we are still working on drywall. 

In fact, Nate spent time this past weekend patching up large cracks with strips of drywall he measured and cut out to fit perfectly in those cracks. He screwed them in and then used easy sand for sheetrock (drywall mud) to smooth it out and level it with the rest of the drywall.

HANGING DRYWALL THROUGHOUT THE COTTAGE

Nate started in the office by learning to hang drywall on the ceiling by himself using a drywall panel hoist. He moved into the laundry room to do the same. Then he hung several pieces on our large vaulted ceiling over the living room and kitchen area. By that time, we were living in our fixer upper while fixing it up for about three weeks. 

After finishing the drywall on the vaulted ceiling, he moved back to the office to finish hanging drywall on the office walls alone. He was back to measuring and pre-cutting the drywall pieces and putting glue on the studs the drywall would be hung on.

He would place large pieces of drywall right onto the glue, which reminded me of construction paper projects in school – on a much larger scale. No wonder, it’s called “construction” paper! That seriously makes me giggle. Then he would screw the drywall into the studs so it would hang securely on the wall. 

HANGING DRYWALL IN THE OFFICE ALONE

I filmed him on my old iPhone 7 Plus as he was hanging drywall on the office walls alone. He hung it horizontally, but for some reason, I thought he would hang it vertically. It seemed weird to me at first because the sheet covered the large colonial window. But then he explained to me that he would cut it out later to obviously keep the opening for the window visible from the room.

Secretly, I was wondering how he would do that without damaging the window. I still had a lot to learn about construction and drywall in general. Continuing to try and even keep the terminology correct in my head. 

When he pressed the drywall into the glue and held it up with one hand, he reached down to grab his screw gun to screw it in. I noticed all the muscles in his legs and knew if he kept working on this, he would have strong muscles and even mentioned it to him. He quickly deflected that by saying that the current drywall he was working on was really light. Sure.. Looks like someone needs to learn how to take a compliment!

I kept my eyes on the gaps where the walls met the ceiling to make sure he straightened out the drywall so it covered the area with the least amount of gaps as possible. But, of course, he already knew to do that and would readjust right before he would add another screw. He definitely had a system to hang it and got into a bit of a rhythm with it. 

Now that he was getting the hang of it (total pun intended there!), it seemed like he enjoyed it. Especially when I saw him working on it this past weekend as well as about two and half years ago. 

HANGING DRYWALL OVER INSTALLED INSULATION

And he also finished putting in the insulation throughout most of the house. There was a lot of progress being made. So amazing! It was really starting to come together. The living room would be next to get its covering of drywall as well. All of the tar paper and insulation was installed and they would be topped off with fresh sheets of drywall. 

We had huge piles of drywall all over the house to take on this massive task. We were literally putting up drywall in the whole house. Another good reason to have such a small house. Much less to work on and materials to purchase. I still can’t believe all the work Nate did. And most of it by himself! 

The office walls were almost completed as several sheets of drywall covered the insulation. I had a strange thought that it was actually weird to think that you could live in a house with walls now. Wow! He also worked on hanging the drywall in the joint office and master bedroom closet. 

TRANSPORTING DRYWALL TO HANG WITH TRAILER

Since Nate put together that car trailer, whenever we needed to make a drywall run, it would transport it for us. Then he would go back and forth unloading each large piece in the house. 

It was pretty incredible how our little trailer transported all that drywall for us. Now that’s another way that we really are tight on our budget and saved money so that we didn’t have to rent a truck or pay for delivery. 

Nate ended up stacking a lot of sheets of drywall in the office. We would need tons of it to finish the house! They looked large and heavy, but he assured me that the boards he was unloading were not that heavy. 

REPLACING CROOKED 2X4 IN KITCHEN

Nate noticed a stud in the kitchen wall that he wanted to replace because it was all warped. It was bowing and pushing the drywall out. I thought it was a new frame and it was, but it appears the contractors may have accidentally put in a crooked stud. 

He would have to remove the wire going through the stud, then remove it and finally replace it with a straight stud instead. Good thing he caught that! 

I started to realize that when we buy homes, we are really at the mercy of contractors and what they do behind walls because a lot of these things cannot just be openly seen unless you start pulling away the drywall and such.

Psalm 33:11

But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

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.

🏚 HANGING DRYWALL ON HIGH VAULTED CEILING FRAME ALONE 💪🏼

💪🏼 FIRST TIME HANGING DRYWALL ALONE AND BUILDING TRAILER TO HAUL IT 🏚