The new owners of this house wanted all the acoustic (popcorn) texture and some wallpaper removed and all cracks fixed before they moved in. They also wanted it primed and painted so on moving day all was ready for them to enjoy their new house.

They had 2 vaulted, 1coffer(picture below), 1pan, and several flat ceilings.

The hall bath was one room that the wallpaper had to be removed.

That meant that we had to remove the paper then do 2 skim coats(with 2 different types of mud), touch up, prime, paint and then caulk around anything needing caulked.

Some prep work had to be done first.

Some other prep work included stuff like putting plastic on all floors and walls because they were not going to replace the carpet or have the walls painted at this time.

This is what the rock looked like after we removed the old texture and a light sanding.

Next we start the skim coat.

Before we could skim coat some of the rooms we had to fix some cracks.

Can you see the damage now?

This kind of work WILL make a mess so be fore warned.

Skim coat and another sanding done.

All the walls as well as the ceilings needed skim coats with 2 different types of mud just to get it prepped for the primer.

After the skim and sanding we texture with the knock down they wanted.

Here’s a pic of the pan that had wallpaper removed as well, it has just been re-textured.

There were many cracks in this room as well that had to be addressed before we textured.

Kitchen starting to shape up after the prime coat.

Then after the paint coat everything starts to really look good.

Took down all the plastic and them some clean up.

Bathroom just about done, just have to put all the fixtures back.

This is the new texture.

This was to be a young couples very first home. Since there were smokers that lived there before and the fact that there had been some water damage they called us.

They wanted the old popcorn texture replaced with a knock down and they wanted to make sure all water and smoke damage (and smell) would be fixed and covered up. In short they wanted a fresh warm clean look to their new home and that’s exactly what we intended to do for them.

Sorry as I was cutting out the bad area it hit me that I had yet to take pics.

Look close and you’ll see water damage.

Lots of cracks and peeled tape on the ceilings, corner bead, and in the angles.

Now that we have removed all the acoustic (popcorn) texture…

…we can start on fixing any damaged areas.

Here’s that water damaged spot you saw a few pics ago now with the patch almost in place. Just a few more screws to go.

I only use P-Tape (mesh tape) if I’m going to be using hot mud(per manufacturers directions), other wise the products warranty is void due to improper installation.

There was more damage under the texture when we removed it than you could initially see.

Given more time these spots would have reared their ugly head…possibly the day before you were going to be entertaining and of course in the very spot where everyone would see.

There were also many spots like little holes and nails that had popped that needed to be fixed.

The big patch we are working on now has a few coats of mud on already.

Some of the other cracks that were fixed.

We have now finished with the skim coating and sanding of the ceilings and any walls where the corner bead or angles were cracked and had to be repaired.

Nice and smooth.

Hahaha, look at me I must love what I do to put up with this.

I know texture doesn’t look so great on me but it sure looks good on the ceilings in this place.

Close up of the knock down texture we put on.

Everything has been primed and is now dry and ready for paint.

Working on the 2nd coat of paint.

Walls, ceilings, and trim all done.

All touch up done.

This is where there used to be a crack. It is also a better pic of the texture after all work is done and dry.

I find that a lot of pepole are redoing there own homes to fit there needs rather then buying new.

That is the case with this job. The home owners hung the rock then called me in for the finishing and texturing they wanted to do the priming and painting.

Just a note that I’m walking you though this process so the pic won’t always match what I’m writing.

I leave some pics out so as not to disclose any trade secrets.

Hard to tell but this is one of those RARE occasions when the home owner did a really good job hanging.

There were many gaps but with a house of this age you know that all that settling of the foundation will throw all walls off kilter.

They even put up a few sticks of corner bead for me.

Now if you know me ONE of the things I’m super picky about is my corner bead, so I would rather put it on myself. Not that they did a bad job I’m just telling the rest of you guys/gals out there for future reference.

I pre-filled then flat taped all bad areas. Then taped the butts, flats, headers, as well as the angles and around the shower.

Then I filled corner bead, flats, butts, screws around the shower, and any other bad spots.

Then I put a finish on all bad spots, flats, butts, headers, angles around the shower, screws, and bad spots.

Then I like to put a skim coat on things that go slick.

Next comes a light sanding.

Then texture.

Then touch up and a final sand so all is smooth.

Oh and my favorite of all(I hate this part) the clean up:(

In the drywall business it can slow down for one drywall contractor but another one has more then they can handle.

From time to time we call each other for a helping hand.  I know it sounds crazy for a competitor to call another drywall contractor to come help, but if you make friends they just might be your ally.

This post is about one of those “can you help me out” jobs.

The home owners were redoing their master bathroom and it needed to be done as fast as possible.  All walls, the shower area, and the water closet needed finished.  There were also a few patches on the vaulted ceiling as well as on some of the walls that would need to be patched.

In the pic below you can see they only had new rock installed on the lower part of the outside walls.

All upper angles needed to be taped and finished as well as the patches I mentioned earlier, meaning new texture for the vault.

Skipping ahead to the finish coat.

(All dots in pic are from us sanding between coats)

Sorry, makes it hard to see anything. One day I’ll learn how to take better photos.

This is two of the patches we did, there were some on the old rock where they were putting in different lights but I forgot to get pics.

On this job the home owners had a water leak a year earlier and were just now getting around to getting it fixed.

This is a look at the hole. I had to widen it even farther then this pic shows due to the fact that the water had deteriorated the existing rock.

Oh and if you take a look at the wall you can see a water stain. They wanted me to prime and paint it 3/4 the way down(I don’t believe there was any mold growth on the back side of the rock).

Patch in place, bed coat, fill coat, and angle ran a 2nd time.

Finish coat done.

Skim coat complete.

1st texture done and this is the 2nd texture, this time knocked down

(more about this at the end of this post).

Just finished sanding and priming, next comes paint for the wall and ceiling.

Job done but the paint was still wet and after it dried everything blended in perfect.

After we cleaned up.

This had to be a double texture because when it was being built the person who did the original texture job had sprayed the bathroom then forgot to knock it down so they came back later and re-textured it.

So that meant to get the texture to match I had to spray it, let it set up, then come back and spray and put a knock down on it.

On the left is the first texture and on the right is the second with a knock down.

It was hard to match and it took more trips then I bid it for but it turned out looking good and the home owners were happy so that’s what’s important.

What we have here is a look at some corner bead that cracked, so we started by removing the damanged  parts and even had to replace some parts with new.

Next comes tape, fill, finish, and skim coats.

This is a look at the skim coat and some cracks that are almost fixed for good.

On the left you have a crack that went from the wall to the light, on the right you had what was once two cracked angles.

After the skim coat we sanded. The “dots” you see are dust from sanding which we do in between each coat.

Last coat on all the cracks and corner bead.

Done with all skim coats and sanding.

The left pic is after we put on the texture and the right is what the texture looked like.

They only wanted the vault to be slick, so in order to fix some of the cracks we had to re-texture and yes it’s acoustic (popcorn).

Then we primed and painted all walls and ceilings.

Done and time for clean up. Keep in mind the paint was still wet when these pics were taken.

It looked better after all was dry.

We scrapped and scrapped,…

… and scrapped…

…. and scrapped a little more.

Pics of one of the cracks and one of the corner bead pulling away.

When we were done scrapping we found a few more problems.

There were nails popping out so the rock was just kind of floating there on the rafters.

On this job we’re going to remove a popcorn texture on a vaulted living room ceiling and go slick, fix some cracks, pealing tape, and some corner bead that has popped and cracked.

This will be a level 5 finish and we will also do the priming and painting.

This is what Acoustic (Popcorn) looks like.

I think it looks like cottage cheese myself.

This is just one of several cracks and “popped” corner bead that they wanted fixed as well.

We put plastic over everything trying to minimize the big mess that’s about to happen.

Then we started scraping off the acoustic (popcorn) texture.

We had this basement (going to be a craft room with special paint so the girls could paint on the walls) job that was mostly hung, they put up the walls then called us to do the lids(ceilings).

The reason they put up the rock on the walls first is because they originally planed in putting in a drop down ceiling but after looking at what that would cost they decided on drywall instead.

This is what we had to work with.

We hung, pre-filled, taped, finished, skimmed, sanded, and textured the ceiling….but that’s not all we did.

There was this crazy pipe they wanted to hide but they didn’t want a big soffit so…..

…we did the next best thing and put in a very slim soffit and they loved it!

Then we floated out all the other joints on the walls,ran the corner bead two more times and made sure that all would look good for them.

This is a basement job we had and on this one we didn’t have to sand, texture, prime or paint

A few pics before we started.

Lots of pre-fill and flat taping had to be done first.

Also had to match new rock to old.

This job had to be done in 3 days!

It was a rush job but we can only work as fast as the mud will dry.

Last coat of mud.

There was a ton of hand work so that slowed things down some.

There was a crazy closet that should have had new rock but the home owners were on a budget so we just did two skim coats over the wall paper(I don’t recommend this).

Not the best thing to do in case you want to sell later on but they said this would be there last house,

so bottom line is…

The customer is always right.