Mudding, Taping, Sanding and Painting!

Of all the basic remodeling jobs, finishing drywall is my least favorite. Covering screws and flat seams aren't so bad, but corners are the worst for me and unfortunately, even though my bathroom is small it has a lot of them at strange angles because of the sloped ceiling.

I had done my initial mudding and taping a while back but had been procrastinating about finishing everything up. Since I had a four day weekend from work I used two of the days to mud, sand and repeat. Because the spot where the sloped ceiling meets wall with the door is less than 90 degrees, my small angled sanding sponge came in handy to get in the tight spot for a nice finish.

After several rounds of mudding and sanding I finally had things smooth and to the point where I could finally move on.

I used my shop vac to clean up all the sanding dust and wiped down the walls and ceiling before putting on a coat of tinted primer.

Two coats of paint later and the ceiling and walls were all a nice dark charcoal grey (Valspar's Mark Twain Gray Brick). To help disguise the low ceilings I painted the ceiling and walls the same color and I thought the almost black color would be nice to balance out all of the white tile and woodwork that will eventually be in the room.

Next up is tiling the shower surround, which I already got started with on Monday. Despite having a hard time finding time to get this bathroom done I can't wait to get it finished!

For other related posts about this bathroom renovation check out the history of my downstairs bathroom, fixtures for my bathroom renovation, plumbing in the downstairs bathroom, installing the floor tile underlayment, insulating the ceiling, installing the vapor barrier for the shower, installing drywall and cement board and tiling a vintage mosaic border. If you are interested in my completed master bathroom renovation check out master bathroom renovation recap.

Paint For the Hallway (Finally!)

On Saturday I finished what I started on the hallway last weekend and finally got some paint up on the walls. First, I had to do a final sanding of the drywall compound on the section that I had drywalled. It can be easy to miss spots when you are only using your eyes so I always rub my hands over everything to make sure I have everything perfectly smooth before I prime the walls.

Here is everything before primer. I really hate doing corners but after a lot of mudding and sanding this one came out pretty well, I think.

The raw drywall had to be primed, but I decided to also prime the rest since the dark orangey red was going to be a bit tough to cover.

One trick that I learned to get really smooth walls is to lightly sand a wall that was raw drywall after you prime it. The reason is that the sanded drywall compound is really smooth, but the drywall around it that has been sanded gets a little fuzzy. Below is a picture showing that before I primed. Once you prime the wall if you give it a light sanding it knocks down the rough texture from the fuzzy drywall and makes everything very smooth.

The final step was two coats of paint on the wall. I love the grey color with blue undertones of the Nimbus Gray walls. There is no natural light in the hallway so I kept the lights on to take the photos, but that makes it hard to get good pictures. I am going to have to do some experimenting to get better shots in the hallway.

Next up in here is to add crown and put down some hardwood flooring. Longer term I plan to replace the door molding to match the rest of the house (that's why I wasn't too careful with my cutting in) and add beadboard wainscoting. For now I am just happy that I have finished walls with paint!