How to: Drywall a Ceiling in an OLD House
Okay… so this isn’t a story about the continuing adventures of Julie and Judy in their old house. It’s a spinoff series with Julie and Judy on a roadtrip to Judy’s sister’s house to play with drywall.
So… last week Judy and I took off to work on our house. We got a lot done, too… AFTER the first weekend, that is. Monday thru Wednesday we worked on different projects, Judy on the floor and me on the built-in bookcase. Monday, we had the cable company come in and hooked up 3 new outlets, after we prepared the walls for them (hey… we’re cheap, remember!) and I installed 2 new phone outlets in both bedrooms and ran phone line up to the attic. If nothing else, we can hook up phone and tv upstairs and have everyone over for the Packer games in an open attic.
Anyway, we got a lot done and worked hard on our house and I’m digressing from the main story and this is now a run-on sentence.
So… the road trip! - We went decided to help out Judy’s family and do some repair work on their kitchen ceiling. Weloaded up the truck with EVERYTHING, drove down Thursday and picked up 6 sheets of drywall on the way down. Friday morning, we got up and jumped into the work.
You gotta love old houses! Not a level or square area anywhere on that ceiling!
Judy and I started by putting up plastic, setting up tools and tearing down the first older piece of drywall. Fun! I looked up and said, ‘Hey! There’s a bathtub up there!’ (I’m so observant.)
We found that we didn’t necessarily need to replace all of the ceiling, just one section and then patch and fix other spots. That’s cool. So, we enlisted the help of a couple of their teenage girls and hoisted the two sheets of drywall up in place. Picture me on the counter, one girl on the ladder, one on a stool, Judy on the other ladder trying to screw down the drywall as fast as possible to stop our screaming and whining.
After what seemed like an eternity or holding heavy drywall over our heads (I think it was only a couple minutes, but for all we knew it was about a gazillion hours!), we got it secured and started repairs in other spots.
We had one particularly nasty little spot that insisted on being a creep. A small section that had a water pipe coming to the very bottom of the drywall. That small section took us longer to fix then that whole area with the full drywall sheet. We said colorful words and made hand gestures, sweated, screamed, drilled, sawed, drilled again, sawed again, more colorful words, more drilling, more… well, you get the picture. When we got it done, we merrily walked away happy with a job well done! Well, okay, not so much happy as more like disgusted and p.o.’d at a p.i.t.a. job that left us hot, sweaty, crabby and dirty and mumbling like half-crazed women. Hey… you say tomato…
Did I say you gotta LOVE old houses?!
Anyway… Saturday and Sunday went more smoothly. We mudded, and sanded a couple times. Sunday we got up and sanded one last time and put on the primer and texture. Removed the plastic and tape. Cleaned up the kitchen. Crawled to the truck and slugged on home. Needless to say, we both needed HOT showers. We then slunk to the couch, fell on it and sat there until bedtime both thinking how nice it would be to be back at work the next day so we could relax. (Did I say that? Ack!)
Judy’s sister was a gem the whole weekend. Always making sure we ate. Checking on us from time to time and offering to help. And, always making sure we had a nice, clean, freshly mopped floor before we sanded again. 
It was hard, dirty work, but we enjoyed ourselves and had fun, through all the frustrations of working on an old house. Judy’s family is a joy to visit and we enjoyed lending a hand. Through it all, they kept us smiling, even when things got frustrating. It was also good for us to work on something besides our own house and finish a project for a change.
So… to summarize drywalling in an old house:
1. Get the proper tools (levels)
2. Get lots of drywall
3. Use strong ladders
4. Don’t drop the drill from the top of the ladder
5. Know how to use a level
6. Be prepared to cut lots of drywall.. for the same spot, over & over
7. Know how to properly swear like a sailer
8. Have people nearby who can make you laugh
9. Always make sure there’s a GOOD, HOT shower handy
10. Know how to use LEVEL
11. Have the ability to laugh at yourself when you’re covered in drywall dust, sweat and have a big, red ring around your face from dust masks
12. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LEVEL, GET ONE!
Stay tuned next week for further adventures of Judy and Julie back in the attic!
Skol!
Jules
PS… on a good note, over the weekend we only dropped our drills a FEW times, got only a FEW bruises and swore like sailers a FEW times. Really. Honest. Why are you laughing? 
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