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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

I just redid my whole kitchen to the studs. You're making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. Now I'm onto a bedroom where I removed two whole walls that had been weirdly built to cut the room into a smaller room. This is going to require a bunch of repair work, all the way to the ceilings.

Certainly, if you're looking for perfectly smooth walls, then you're never going to be happy regardless. My place is Santa Fe, which is perfect... it is supposed to be messy. But this is a place built in the 40's... nothing is perfect. Doing something perfectly would stand out even more.

If you want old paints to match, then just paint the whole wall. That's easier and probably the right solution anyway.

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Sure, it’s easy when you have the wall texture that is designed to look like a bad drywall job. If you’re trying to match the wall type found in 90% of American homes, there’s a huge difference in efficiency and quality between a DIYer and a professional mudder.

A good feathering job saves a ton of wasted sanding effort and drywall dust. When I ask GCs and tradespeople which job they would would never do themselves, drywall is far and away the most common answer. It’s the only job I regret doing myself.

From what I've learned on YT, using quick drying mud and mixing it yourself (not using the premixed stuff in plastic containers), is the key to smooth finishes. Mostly because it hardens quickly and doesn't shrink. I used the 40m quick dry and it was quite easy to work with. You're right, feathering correctly... no sanding needed.

Sheetrock 45 is the way

I'm just using 18lbs bags of westpac 40... it's what they had at home depot. cheap and easy.

Picking the correct timing for the cure time with the job size is almost an art in itself. It’s unlikely one can figure it out without a lot of experience doing it and most folks that don’t do it for a living won’t do it often enough to acquire that experience. It’s a lot of hot mud waste and back and forth trips to the hardware store that’s exhausting for busy folks that have another full time job.

I used a drill with a mixer from a hand blender plugged into it. Made it really easy to make a batch that filled the stainless steel mud box I am using. Even being totally untrained, getting that onto the wall in under 40 minutes was easy. Took a bit more mixing and batches than a pro would take, but all in all... it wasn't nearly as hard as you're making it out to be.

How about flooring?

I'm teaching myself that one too. Will replace with luxury vinyl. I just pulled up the oak floor in the bedroom. It had asphalt paper under it. Sigh. Date on the wood was 2001, so not terribly old, but definitely could use an update.

Since the house is old, it is plywood floors and they aren't even enough for vinyl. Going to have to learn how to fix that too. From what I can tell, it is basically just mud like on the walls... but portland cement on the floor.

I’ve done wood and vinyl plank flooring in a single room as a not particularly handy homeowner. It’s a lot of work but not really difficult.

"When I ask GCs and tradespeople which job they would would never do themselves, drywall is far and away the most common answer."

Electrician is the answer I usually get, largely because if you do electricity wrong, you can kill yourself or burn down the house.

By removing and replacing entire walls, you are missing out on most of the difficult parts of texture and paint matching (and "just paint the whole wall" quickly turns into "paint the whole room" in some cases). I suppose you could make the argument that we should then just rip out the entire wall to run a single cable, but I personally think that's extreme both in cost and disruption.

I'm glad you had such an easy time of it, but cutting, patching, and matching is a pain in most homes I've done it in. And don't even get me started on lath and plaster.

I didn't say it was easy... it just isn't so overblown "hire a professional" as people make it out to be. I was terrified before I started, but once I watched a bunch of YT videos and then got to work... it ended up being a lot less stressful than I imagined.

Pretty much impossible to do without major strain on a relationship if you live with someone else, and god help you if you have kids. FYI.

Doing it down to the studs and all at once is definitely the easier way to do it. Small patches and piecework suck, but if you’re living in it, especially with others, you don’t always get a say in the matter.

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