Putting up walls

The easiest part of hanging drywall is attaching it to studs. This leads to a false sense that it's going to be quick and easy. Let me tell you, EVERYTHING else associated with drywall is hard, dirty, dusty, thankless work. The main lesson that is being reinforced for me at every step of this process is that people in the skilled trades are heroes. I get that a professional drywall person is way more efficient than I am, but good grief. The taping and mudding of drywall is not my fave but it's OK. Sanding drywall, is the worst. Your skin and hair gets sooooo dry. it's like if dry shampoo made also made you look like you'd been in a fight with a crate of baby powder.

Now before anyone says anything about the drywall being hung the wrong way because it's not horizontal, I'm going to stop you. I worked out the layout both ways and because of the ceiling height and other features of the room, we actually end up with fewer seams hanging it vertically. In addition, these walls are not structural so we do not have to worry about the same types of shearing force that you might need to take into account on structural wall.

In the photo above that's just the first coat of drywall mud going on. In subsequent coats, that seam got much wider and feathered out. Mr. Handy has a serious aversion to rough dry textures so you know who got to do ALL the taping, mudding, and sanding of the room? This gal! My dad let me help drywall and mud a wall when I was 11 or 12, so I'd done it before, but not in decades.

I used a hot mix drywall mud since you don't have to wait 24 hours between coats and by the time I finished up the drywalling, I quadrupled the amount of it that I could work before it started to set. A huge piece of advice I have for anyone trying to do any DIY task is to just do your research and TRY. You won't be fast at first, and you may even be sort of sloppy, but there is so much information out there. You can teach yourself to do almost anything if you cut yourself some slack and really try.