Once we finished our demo work, it was time to find a drywaller. We learned a very valuable lesson: Drywallers are not the most reliable tradespeople.
We had three separate people agree to do the work and never show up. The first guy called me the day before to say that he couldn’t do the work. I think he had under estimated the cost and just didn’t want to do it. The second guy was more promising (but also more expensive). I took a day off work and he never showed up. Then he rescheduled and I took time off work again, and he never showed up. The third said he’d email me a quote and I never heard from him again (despite numerous emails and texts). Finally we had a fourth guy who came recommended. He had a decent price and actually showed up to do the work.
He promised he could do the work in a couple of hours on a weeknight. He showed up at 6:30pm but wasn’t finished until after 11:30. We felt terrible for our neighbours and the whole thing was stressful. But at least it was done.
He then sent a different guy to complete the taping and mudding. This is where things fell apart. The guy was a complete disaster. He got mud everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Our floor and walls were covered in this stuff – and in rooms where he wasn’t even working!
It took him 3 days but he finally left. I shouldn’t have paid him – or paid him the full amount – but I needed him out of our lives.
The work itself was also crap. Not only did he get mud everywhere (which required a massive clean up) but he didn’t leave it paint-ready like we paid for.
So, we had to basically redo most of it.
Alex and I were mad. Like, really mad. And I still regret paying him. I know better than that. But I really wanted him to be out of my house. I knew that if he stayed and fixed it, the mess would only get worse.
So my dad and I spent a day re-mudding and re-sanding. My dad then finished the job for us while we were at work and got it paint-ready. I should have just hired my dad…
When it was done, it looked pretty great. Here are some before and after photos to see how we transformed the space.
[…] closet, we then had to make an opening that would fit exactly around the wardrobe. Our drywaller framed and drywalled the wall exactly to our specifications. The wardrobe unit is 200cm, or 78.75″, so we built […]