The truth about drywall
Once, I broke off a little piece of my food processor which was cylindrical and about twice the diameter of a pencil. Naturally, it broke off inside the shaft where it fit, so just grabbing it and pulling it out was not an option. I spent the better part of an hour devising a plan for retrieval and gathering the necessary equipment (that being a pencil and some super glue). Every time I would think that I had the glue dry enough to attach the pencil to the broken piece and pull it out, I’d somehow botch it. This was immensely frustrating. Eventually, one of my roommates wandered into the kitchen and stood by to see what I was up to. After a few minutes of watching my feeble attempts at retrieving this stubborn little piece of plastic, Steve gently pushed me aside, picked up the food processor and turned it upside down, whereupon the little piece of plastic fell to the floor.
This story bears an alarming similarity to my experience of planning our drywall usage.
For some reason, I got it squarely into my head that drywall is only available in 4′ x 8′ sheets. Period. Being that our ceiling is 9ish feet, I had figured out the cleverest way to stagger all of the seams that would be necessary and calculated the number of sheets, amount of tape and volume of mud that we would need. I am nothing if not prepared…
When we arrived at the drywall aisle of the Home Despot, I sat down to verify my calculations, like any sensible girl would do. I reflected aloud, to no one in particular, that it would certainly make life easier if they would just make 10 ft. sheets of drywall, and that perhaps I should invent such a thing. Just then a magic prince in Dickies overalls appeared from the mist and pointed out, just as graciously as any gentleman could, that I was, in fact, sitting on a considerable stack of 10 ft. drywall.
Six sheets of which now clad my East, Southeast, and South kitchen walls.
We still need to drive the majority of the screws and apply mud and tape…but this is the baby steps project, remember? Full time jobs, school, bands, and other creative efforts (not to mention binge drinking…) take lots of time…