Bathroom remodel....please help

[roxynoodle]

If you are looking to do this cheap and easy, I'd say either prime and paint with a texture paint and then the glue ridges might not make much difference. Use the exterior paint as recommended. You could also take a belt sander and remove the glue, but as others suggested, it could contain asbestos and I'd want to know that before I turned it into dust. I live in a house where the former owner put up new wallpaper every few years, right over the old wallpaper. She did a terrible job every time too. In my front room, I peeled layers and layers of wallpaper and the last layer was that stuff with the fuzzy 3-D design. I scraped and scraped and finally got tired of it and took a belt sander and sanded it all off. Since the walls very kind of pitted from doing all this scraping and sanding I put up that texture paintable wallpaper and painted it. If you can sand the glue off though you could have a lot of options. You could paint or or put up wood wainscoting or wainscoting panels. You could even use ceramic tile. It isn't going to be walked on, so you wouldn't need to put up the backerboard. A nice molding at the top could transition you to the other walls. Home Depot sells a new stainproof grout made by 3M.

 

[Dhill]

John,
If you are planning to let the sheetrock be the exposed surface of the wall, then you'll have to replace the sheetrock. It's not a difficult task, do as RonMar suggested, cut the area out that's bad and replace. An experienced tape and bedder could likely do the finished surface for you in an hour's time, but you'll probably have a difficult time finding someone who will do such a small job. If you don't want to mess with the sheetrock, then you'll have to cover the old surface with another paneling of some type. There are various laminates and surfaced sheets that you can choose from. Since these apply by using paneling glue, simply sand down the old glue ridges as best you can and apply the new sheet. There's plenty of options for trim pieces to cover the seams.

 

[EddieWalker]

Cutting out sheetrock and replacing it is ALLOT more work that just smoothing some mud over a ruff area. It's very difficult to tape in a new piece of sheetrock and feather it to the old stuff. Thre is nothing wrong with the sheetrock, so there is no reason to remove it.

The glue is attached to the paper. The paper will peel right off the gypsum that is the core of sheetrokc. Smooth it over with some mud, sand it smooth and your done. If you have a texture, copy that to the smooth area.

Don't get caught up in over doing it or making it into some complicated, big job when it's not necesary.

Eddie

 

[JJ. in B.C.]

Hi papabear! now PLEASE!!! dont take offense, but "help to the wife and I" is incorrect. drop the wife and you would not say, "help 'I'" you would say "help me" so its correct to say "help the wife and me". (honestly, im just giving you a rule.. like give a man a fish/teach a man to fish) and we all get that wrong!!!! ok, my recommendation is 1.) replace the drywall, its easy and if the room is small relatively inexpensive. since you don't want to do that, 2.) buy the glossy bathroom 4X8 sheet of bathroom panelling at the depot/lowes/menards and attach directly to the glued up drywall (of course, take out as many rough bumps as you can) i hope i help a little -tim

I know absolutely nothing about refinishing bathroom walls, but.......i do think that one should do ones homework before trying to correct another persons grammer !!! The term "help to the wife and i" is perfectly correct, whereas "help the wife and me" is NOT. Please stand corrected. JJ.

 

[Doc_Bob]

New drywall is alot of mess,and much more involved than we can do at this time.We are trying to think of ways to cover this glue with some sort of wall covering that will go over the glue and be bathroom worthy as far as moisture and looks go.

Thinnest waterproof wall board you can apply over the mess. Or if you are going to retile, I think Duroc over the glue would be fine. Or, you do I like I did and demo the entire bathroom! Lot of work but it sure looks nice.
Bob

 

[vmarc]

I've used a wallpaper type product from Lowes that will cover even cement block and make it look smooth.Paint right over it.

 

[RobertN]

It's very difficult to tape in a new piece of sheetrock and feather it to the old stuff. Smooth it over with some mud, sand it smooth and your done. If you have a texture, copy that to the smooth area.
Eddie

One thing to look at is the right tools. To float stuf out, whether matching old/new sheetrock, or floating a coat of mud over existing, it helps to have the right tools. You just can't float stuff out with a 4" or 6" knife. That's when you need a 12" or bigger.

 

[riptides]

I am currently refinishing drywall in three rooms. Depending on the amount of material applied to the wallboard and how it reacts to primer I have -

Removed vast amounts of wallpaper and mudded

Removed vast amounts of wallpaper and mudded, and mudded

Removed vast amounts of wallpaper and mudded, and mudded, and mudded

Removed vast amounts of wallpaper and applied new sheetrock

Removed vast amounts of wallpaper and applied new sheetrock and mudded.

Notice, I never said sanded. The trick is to apply layers of mud/compound to get the desired imperfections out. Where the wallboard is beyond mud and the desired smooth surface, we hang new sheetrock over existing wallboard.

Either way it is a chore, textured primer and paints help.... but if your going to do it right..... well.... spend some time.

Good luck.

-Mike Z.

 

[Dhill]

I am in the middle of a full bathroom remodel. I’m moving walls, plumbing, the whole works. It’s time consuming, and some of it is difficult. Even with this experience, I’m assuming too much when I offer THE way to fix John’s problem. Without seeing the actual task that he faces, it’s hard to say what the best way is to fix it. Sanding and mudding sheetrock is easier than replacing sheetrock. But stripping the sheetrock paper completely off of the gypsum diminishes the integrity of the sheetrock. A little moisture on the sheetrock will cause it to literally fall apart. Mudding over that can control it somewhat, but just adding mud isn’t going to replace the effect of the paper if all the paper is missing. In that case, it would be much better to replace the damaged section of sheetrock. But that may not be necessary for papabear’s application. I think most of us here are offering free advice for him to consider. He’ll have to make the decision for what’s best. From my experience, even the simplest fixes can become a major PIA.
On a side note, the expression “to the wife and I” is grammatically incorrect. The pronoun “I” is subjective case. It is used here as the object of the preposition “to” so consequently, the pronoun should be in its objective form “me”. However, when it’s all said and done, who cares. We know exactly what John means, and he was extremely gracious in the manner that he asked for help.
As Forest Gump says, “and that’s all I have to say about that.”

 

[gsganzer]

Papabear,
Just to give you an idea on cost to rock, bed and texture. It cost me $500 to have my masterbath 10' x 12' and adjoining closet 10' x 6' tape, bed and textured on the walls and ceiling (I put the sheet rock up myself). For them to also install the sheetrock, it probably would have added another $500-$600. I know "expense" is relative, but I think it was extremely reasonable for someone to come and do it in 2-3 days. And it looks a whole lot better then if I did it myself.