After all the mudding and sanding last week it felt good to finally put the drywall tools away and get the walls primed and ready for paint.
I’m really happy with the finish I was able to achieve on the walls. We have a lot of functional reasons for going with drywall for the interior which Brian has talked about in previous posts, but I was secretly also just excited to have an excuse to up my drywall game, and I can definitely say mission accomplished. The walls are beautifully flat, and you’d never even know those problematic butt joints are there.
The biggest challenge for me was just learning how much mud to use. By the end I felt like I finally had a good sense of what I needed to get each task done, what would sand out, and when to finally stop fussing. (I fussed A LOT. More than was ok.) Hopefully now I’ll have the confidence to move more quickly through the whole process, though, like with so many of the skills I’ve picked up on this build I’ll likely forget all of this before I need to stretch these muscles again!
To do it again I’d use the mesh tape for everything but the butt joints to save myself some drying time, and I’d definitely use the full strength all purpose joint compound for at least my first coat of mud. And I’d hang the rock a bit differently to avoid some of the trickier areas I ran into. That knowledge alone is going to make the next time we do this so much easier.
I’m priming the walls with a low-VOC drywall primer/sealer from Valspar. For cheap box store paint it gets incredible reviews from pros and DIYers alike, and I’ve used it before and have been very happy with the results. It does a good job of leveling out any imperfections and sanding marks in an amateur mud job like mine, and provides great adhesion for the paint. It’s exciting to finally get a glimpse of what the interior will look like, and to have white walls ready for paint!
x Liz
