At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Today the workers sprayed knockdown on the ceilings.

They put drywall mud in the sprayer and spray it on the ceilings. They use a blade on a pole to scrape off the splatter that lands on the top of the walls near the ceiling. They drag a wide blade along the ceiling to flatten the mud on the ceiling to give the mud its final texture.

 

[shane]

Another question you ask your trim carpenter is does he shim his doors. Many don't these days. It does make a difference in the long run, just as coping.

 

[brin]

Today the workers sprayed knockdown on the ceilings.

They put drywall mud in the sprayer and spray it on the ceilings. They use a blade on a pole to scrape off the splatter that lands on the top of the walls near the ceiling. They drag a wide blade along the ceiling to flatten the mud on the ceiling to give the mud its final texture.

Obed, You mean you are having textured ceilings ? Commonly called popcorn finish here in Georgia ? or are you going to have flat surfaced ceilings ?

 

[MarkV]

In my world these would be called a knockdown finish also. Applied the same way as the "popcorn finish" and then hit with a blade to flatten the round beads of a popcorn finish. It tends to simulate real old textured plaster finishes.

MarkV

 

[brin]

In my world these would be called a knockdown finish also. Applied the same way as the "popcorn finish" and then hit with a blade to flatten the round beads of a popcorn finish. It tends to simulate real old textured plaster finishes.

MarkV

Mark, Here in Georgia a whole industry took off with dry wall folks being paid beginning in the early 1990's to scrape all of the popcorn finish or other knowdown finish off of existing ceilings . People no longer wanted anything but a flat ceiling surface and painted just like the wall...not the same color but smooth paint finish as opposed to any texture. It became well known that any mud applied to the ceiling was a way the sheet rock folks got away without having to sand or properly finish the ceilings...Folks wised up to it here and now if you have a house on the market with popcorn or any textured ceiling folks do not want it..

 

[MarkV]

Bob I don't disagree and have pretty much seen the same thing being in Georgia myself. I do like the knockdown finish much better than popcorn but I believe I fit in the group that just wants smooth sheetrock ceilings.

MarkV

 

[brin]

Bob I don't disagree and have pretty much seen the same thing being in Georgia myself. I do like the knockdown finish much better than popcorn but I believe I fit in the group that just wants smooth sheetrock ceilings.

MarkV

Mark 5 yrs ago when we built our house we made sure we had smooth ceilings since when we were trying to sell our house on a parcel next to our farm, which we still own, it seemed like everyone objected to the textured ceilings..It was not even the popcorn it was , as you say, the knockdown finish and we had more folks come in that hated it and the Realtor told us that since the early 90's the majority of folks wanted smooth painted ceilings...We like them better too. The Realtor is the one who told me the sheet rockers loved the textured ceilings since they did not have to sand or finish them and folks finally caught on..

 

[Obed]

Ceiling Insulation Prep
Insulating our ceiling has been aberation for all the insulation companies. The fact that we are not finishing the attic but have sub-floor in the attic for structural support has caused the insulation companies to scratch their heads. Most people who build an upstairs like ours finish it so they don't need insulation between the main floor and the upstairs. I described the rational for the subflooring in the attic here.

Building a house can have a never ending stream of drama. The insulation company I described here was scheduled to arrive this afternoon and blow the insulation in our main floor ceiling. We had a general laborer we've used before to arrive this morning to prep the attic for the insulation work scheduled for the afternoon. The plan was for our laborer to remove about 1/3 of the OSB sheets in the attic in the morning. That afternoon the insulation company would blow insulation in the ceiling through the openings caused by removing the OSB. This morning our worker did not show. My wife called him and left a message. He called back and said that he's in Kentucky doing some work there this week.

So my wife called her father who came over. They removed some OSB boards but found the going very slow. To complicate things, the infamous construction manager was supposed to partially screw down the OSB boards but instead he completely screwed them. There are 18 screws in each sheet; there should have been half that number in each sheet. By the time you locate the hard to see screws, dig the sawdust out of the screw heads so you can unscrew them, and remove the screws, you can spend 20 to 30 minutes removing each sheet. Plus, some of the OSB sheets have to be cut because they may sit under walls. My wife and father-in-law saw that there was no way they could remove the OSB in time so the insulation company had to be re-scheduled.

This evening I removed some OSB sheets after work. The loose sheets have been slid over about 3 inches from their installed location. It took me 2 hours to remove 4 sheets. The last sheet went faster than the others once I started getting a system. The screwdriver bit would tend to slip when unscrewing the screws. I found I needed to dig the sawdust out of the screw heads before unscrewing to rectify this problem.

We are trying to re-schedule the insulation blowing for Monday. That will give us the weekend to make sure we have removed the required OSB.

 

[Obed]

Today the drywall sub asked to be paid. My wife told him she wanted us to go through the house first and check the work before paying him. So she went through the house and put blue tape on the walls for things she would like the drywall sub to touch up. Today the drywall workers swept and "cleaned". However, they left about 1/3 of the electrical boxes full of drywall dust. The wife is going to ask them to clean out all the electrical boxes before she pays them.

Overall, the drywall guys have done a decent job. It's not perfect but not bad either.

 

[Obed]

Mark 5 yrs ago when we built our house we made sure we had smooth ceilings since when we were trying to sell our house on a parcel next to our farm, which we still own, it seemed like everyone objected to the textured ceilings..It was not even the popcorn it was , as you say, the knockdown finish and we had more folks come in that hated it and the Realtor told us that since the early 90's the majority of folks wanted smooth painted ceilings...We like them better too. The Realtor is the one who told me the sheet rockers loved the textured ceilings since they did not have to sand or finish them and folks finally caught on..

Bob,
In this area, flat ceilings came into vogue in the late 90's but are less popular now that the knockdown finish has become available. Most new houses have knockdown on the ceiling including the high end houses. I rarely see a new house with flat ceilings.

People hated the popcorn because it collects dirt, is impossible to clean, and is very difficult to repaint. You can repaint over knockdown. In fact, a lot of houses this decade have knockdown on the walls too. I don't like knockdown on the walls but am ok with it on the ceilings. If you have flat ceilings, they better be finished extremely well because the lighting on the ceiling can show every imperfection.

In our last house, I scraped all the popcorn off the ceilings and repainted them flat. That was quite a job.

Obed