Project No. 1: Drywall Replacement

February 05, 2024

The first project in the house that we feel most comfortable doing ourselves is drywall replacement in all four bedrooms of the house. For context, the house (I feel like we should name it down the road. It's something cute that I found on fourssquarefortwo in my rabbit hole of research of renovation blogs.) is move-in ready. It wasn't a condition that we required when we were looking for a house, but it was certainly a plus. The house's previous owner had it since the 1970s and it likely went through some updates here and there, but largely hasn't been renovated since then. The current state of the drywall feels like the bulletin board I kept in my room when I was a teenager to tack up photos of my favorite bands and quotes - brittle and crackly. Like the initial demo moment in home renovation shows, the first hammer through that drywall was satisfying. The tedious work that followed wasn't reality show worthy.

Below are a few before and after pictures, and lessons learned in this ongoing process. I know the professionals will likely know all of this (and wouldn't even cross this blog) so on the off chance they come across this, please bask in the schadenfreude.

Build a temporary shelf for your tools (we used extra pieces of wood we found in an outbuilding to outfit a place for our hammers, crowbar, and sawzall).
Buy a voltage detector pen and turn off power in the rooms you're working in because you want to avoid electrocution.

Also instead of yelling at each other to confirm if the lights are off in one room while someone is in the basement flicking switches in the breaker box, just call each other on video chat.

Paper your floors! We plan on refinishing the hardwood floors within the next year, BUT the amount of fine dust, nails, and other debris is not fun to step on.
Wear an N-95 mask and safety glasses (I don't recommend trim or pieces of old wall paper in one's eyes)
Be patient - I think we've removed at least 2,000 nails (and counting) in the first two bedrooms.
Buy an air purifier for the room you're sleeping in. Dust has a sneaky way of getting into everything and even with two zip walls, my midnight sneeze fits keep our dog up.
Buy an exhaust fan and a shop vac...because dust.
Don't forget to plan your meals and hydrate; being hangry, covered in dust while sharing only one Velveeta microwave mac and cheese does not make for cheerful DIYers.

Finally, don't be surprised to find surprises behind the drywall including a 50-year old mouse nest, insulation that needs replacing, uneven framing, window frame rot, and plumbing that needs to be replaced.

Budget, project ideas, and anxiety begin to snowball when literal walls start to come down. I like to think that the two of us balance each other out when ideas and stress begin to overtake one of us or at least me. :)

UPDATE: Removing drywall, trim, and crusty plaster is dusty work. In an effort to post in a timely manner, I've neglected to specify specific tools we're using and according to my husband, the readers NEED to know in case they want recommendations. I assured him I'm likely the only one boosting the view counts on this blog. So for the interweb readers out there, here are the tools we've been using for drywall removal:

Klein Tools Voltage Tester

DeWalt Reciprocating Saw

As of this past weekend, Bedroom 1 is completely gutted. Bedroom 2 is halfway done; we still need to take down the ceiling drywall and insulation. We are trying to maintain as much of the insulation in the exterior bedroom walls as possible. It's probably taken us a month per room since we only work on demo during the weekends. We have been storing all of the debris in our garage so a dumpster is also a priority in the next month!

Bedrooms 1 and 2