Baseboard and Ceiling, Upstairs Hall

Saturday was a house day for us, with our focus being on the upstairs hallway. We’ve made some progress during the week, and even got a bit of drywall on the ceiling. But today was a day to continue that work, and to start prepping the walls a bit more.

Over the week, we got a 8′ long board up on the ceiling. But when we got to the second 8′ length, it got markedly more difficult. The dry fitting was harder, and we ended up needing to punt on this task until today.

In talking things over, we opted to cut the 8′ board down to a more manageable 4′ board, which made today’s install a lot easier. It’s not ideal, and more work for the taper, but easier for us to install (and dare I say, safer as well).

Liz, trimming a bit of the previous drywall to expose more joist for the next piece to grab onto.

Second two boards installed, with Liz doing some cleanup work for a final small length.

After we got our ceiling pieces up, we decided to focus on putting backer board along the hallway wall. We’re continuing this tip from Bob, which provides us a solid backing for installing trim (and no need to hunt for studs).

This is 5/8″ plywood, and we’ll be setting another 5/8″ drywall on top of this. And then a layer of 3/8″ to cover the whole thing.

Part of the prep work here involved pulling out the plywood floor and trimming 5/8″ off the end closest to the wall. This way, our backerboard sits directly onto the floor joists.

The flooring here is ultimately going to be temporary. When we’re ready for official floor work to begin, I have a hunch we’ll want to rip these up and put fresh pieces down (these boards were beginning to separate a little).

So by cutting them shy of the full length and setting these floor boards against the backer… we can easily pull them up without impacting the walls at all, at some future time.

We also installed a few pieces along the top of the stairs.

Broke out some older friends we haven’t seen in a while, today: the compressor and staple gun.

It doesn’t seem like much in pictures, but we accomplished a good deal today on the house. As an added bonus, the ceiling dryall helps to reflect a bit more light back into the hall, which makes this area feel a bit less like a construction zone.

Related:
Visqueen, Upstairs Hall
Holiday House Work: Upstairs Hall
Covering the Hallway