I am Really Bad at Drywall

It's no secret that I am a big fan of DIY projects, especially, house-related ones. I love taking a boring or outdated space in my house and making it fresh and new. The week we moved into our house, we painted both the office and the master bedroom. Then, we framed and tiled a stone fireplace in the living room and built a bigger deck in the backyard. The next year, I painted a complicated hexagonal mural in the spare bedroom (I should have just wallpapered!) Last summer, I repainted our kitchen, dining room and almost every wall on the main floor. Much to Drake's dismay, I've always got a house project in mind. Here's a few photos of our previous house projects:

Living Room Before (2018)

Framing in Fireplace (2018)

Fireplace Finished (2018)

Ripping Out Old Deck (2018)

Building New Deck(2018)

Finished Deck (2018)

Taping Spare Room Mural (2019)

Halfway Painted (2019)

Halfway Painted (2019)

Finished Spare Room (2019)

Painting the Kitchen (2020)

Kitchen After (2020)

Before Dining Room (2020)

Dining Room After (2020)

You'll notice my brother-in-law, Drew, in many of our house project photos. He's a Carpenter/General Contractor from Vancouver and each time he visits, we do house projects. Housewarming visit? Let's build a deck. Home for Christmas? Let's hang shelves. Summer visit? Let's frame and install a door. Perhaps he's experiencing home ownership vicariously through us given the housing market in Vancouver. Or maybe he's just a nice dude who is really handy with tools (he's also single, ladies). Either way, finishing the laundry room and basement bathroom had been on both mine and Drew's radar for a while. Unfortunately, right around the time we got serious about the renovating the basement, Covid-19 became a thing. So, we scheduled, cancelled, and rescheduled the project on an endless loop as case numbers were high and traveling was prohibited. Finally, when case numbers dropped and vaccination numbers rose, we felt safe to moving forward with the renovation.

Fortunately, Drew is both very knowledgeable and incredibly patient. Which is exactly what I'm looking for in a contractor/supervisor/brother-in-law. He tolerated frequent calls and video chats where he helped plan and provided lists of materials to buy. When he flew out for the renovation, he brought as many of his tools as he could fit in his checked luggage when he came. (Hey Dewalt, where's our sponsorship deal?) We allotted two weeks to finish the laundry room, add the basement bathroom, and demolish then redo the main level bath. Looking back, it was a bit ambitious. But Drew was keen to get started. I picked him up at the airport at 3pm and we had the main level bathroom demolished before bedtime.

After Drew framed the basement bathroom, we called in a plumber to install the tub on the main floor and add hookups for the basement bath and an electrician to install the fan and lighting in the basement bath and laundry room. Shout out to our AMAZING and very talented friend who did our electrical and found us a reliable plumber!!! (Quick PSA, doing your own home electrical is dangerous, call an electrician to ensure it's done correctly!) After we sorted out the plumbing and electrical, we got to work on tiling the bathrooms. Unintentionally, I always seem to subscribe to the "go big or go home" mentality. For someone with absolutely no experience tiling bathrooms, I planned a project full of it: full tile surround around the tub on the main level, new tile floors in both bathrooms, and a half tile wall around the laundry sink in the basement bathroom. However, what I lack in skill I make up for in enthusiasm (or at least, that's what I told myself). Turns out, I'm pretty good at getting the right consistency for thinset and I'm not terrible at using the tile saw. (Drew did all of the really tricky cuts, he's the Contractor, after all.)

After tile, we did drywall. As a person that previously had very limited experience with drywall, I can now say with full confidence, I am really bad at drywall. It's a skill and art that I do not have the patience to become good at. Installing drywall is fun. The brrraapp of the drywall drill is the best. You take a room from "completely unfinished" to "almost there" in an hour. Mudding and taping is the worst. Actually, that's not true. Taping is fine, it's the sanding, mudding, sanding, and re-mudding process that I hate. You spend hours trying to convince a pile of slop to lay flat and smooth as it falls off your knife and schleps onto the floor. Only to spend hours gently rubbing it off into a pile of dust you will later track all over your house. Then after all that, you slap on more slop, rub it off, and continue the cycle for eternity. Painting is much more my jam. Did I rush the drywall sanding and coating to get to the painting? You bet I did. Do I regret it? Kind of? But in a much more real sense, not really. No part of me wanted to spend more time drywalling these rooms. However, I do get a little twinge when I notice a visible seam. But not enough to do anything about it. We had a catch phrase all throughout the renovation (stolen from our friends during their home renovations): "If you wanted perfection, hire someone." This is a bit funny, because we did in fact, hire Drew. Although we paid him predominantly in food and beer, we did actually pay him for his work too (with a heavy family discount). That being said, please never comment on my drywalling skills or ask me to help you drywall. If you ever plan to do your own drywall, just don't. Hire someone who is actually good at it and save yourself the time, energy, and regrets. Here are some in-progress photos of our renovation:

Drew's Luggage Full of Tools

Main Level Bathroom Before

Safety Glasses are Life

Main Level Bathroom Demolished

Mixing Thinset for Tile

New Tile Floor for Main Bath

Tile Prep / Matching Shirts

Cutting Tile

Completed Wall Tile Main Bath

Laundry Room Before

Framing Basement Bath

Installing Laundry Room Floor

Installing Basement Bath Floor

Basement Bath Vanity

Basement Bath Shelving

You might have noticed two things in our renovation photos. 1) I have a penchant for wearing Disney themed t-shirts around the house. 2) Drake isn't in any of the renovation photos. You're right on both accounts. It's no secret that Drake and I have no qualms about flipping gender roles. Renovations are no exception. While I am keen to dive into home renovation projects, Drake would rather not. This makes it sound like he is not supportive, when he very much is. He is a vital part of all of our home renovations; he would just prefer not to do the actual renovation work. Something about tiling, drywalling, and painting gets him right in his anxiety button. So, while Drew and I demolished, tiled, drywalled, and painted, Drake carried out endless trips to Home Depot for supplies, kept us well fed and hydrated, acquired tools, and looked after the doggies.

Here are some photos of the "finished" rooms:

Main Level Bath After

Laundry Room After

Laundry Room After

Basement Bathroom After

I say "finished" because I know myself. There are a million little things I want to add/fix. Like cabinet doors for the shelving units we built and additional built in cabinets in the laundry room. Overall, I am so happy with how these spaces turned out. The main level bathroom feels fresh and modern, and the basement bathroom and laundry room are so much more functional! No more running upstairs to pee during movie nights and the wall-mounted laundry drying racks are a total game changer. Thanks again to everyone who helped design, lent tools, provided support, and gave opinions for paint colors!

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our house. Whatever projects you are doing, I wish you luck!

Best,

Laura