"This Weekend - Time to ROCK!" Topic

Insulation is complete, rough in plumbing complete, Most* of the electric is complete, time to drywall.

Picked up 36 1/2" boards yesterday morning (even had the wife help humping them into the basement and some in the garage).

By dinner, I got 17 boards up. Not too bad, since I was working alone…
To be fair, though, the sapce is a pretty straight, windowless shot, so I only had to cut around outlets.

Hopefully, I'll finish most of the rocking today, so I can schedule the plumber to come back and finish the baseboards.

*The electrician (aka "Brother-in-Law") needs to come back and actually put TWO wires in the two-gang swicth box!
D'Oh!

Your gaming room?

If by "your" you mean my kids, with a small, dark corner for "dad's stuff" then sure…
Ironically, the "new" basement is about 50% larger then the last house, and I have about 10% of the allocated space compared to what I previously had…

Awesome. I always like putting up the boards. It's the mudding/sanding part I can't stand.

Ditto what nyc said. I have been doing home sheet rock projects for 20 years and still can't spackle correctly.

Sounds like you are really making progress Patrick.

While putting up wall board is a job in itself, as others have said, the spackling and sanding is a killer. It always amazes me how fast and good some of the professionals are at it. If there is one place I would spend money on a DIY project it is spackling/sanding.

Fortunately, I'm a really good mudder…

I learned from a contractor who's advice was, "Never try to do in 2-3 coats what really needs 4 (or more)"

Also, I've found that sponging some of the earlier coats is WAY more effective than sanding.

Finally, stirring the mud constantly to keep it smooth helps, as does keeping your tools clean.

I probably throw out one gallon out of every 5. between getting dried crap out of the bucket, cleaning the dry crap off of tools, etc…

I find removing ingrown toenails is preferable to sheetrocking. Slightly more pain but much less frustration. I have a project hanging fire because every time I think about mudding and sanding I reach for a bottle of wine.