If you've got drywall already hung, why not just bite the bullet and pay someone to finish it - and to clean up? The end is so near!

I know but I thought maybe someone had some other idea...to be honest I really like the 5" tongue and groove wood at 45 degree angles but where do you find that stuff and what does it cost?

"...5" tongue and groove wood at 45 degree angles but where do you find that stuff and what does it cost?"

At a real lumber yard, but it is not cheap.
If you want clear wood (not a lot of knots) it is very expensive.

andre

I have been thinking about this as well. The 5 inch boards run about 20 bucks for 12 foot length around here. I started adding up the board feet for my basement - yikes!And remember you will need more when you cut on an angle.

When my house was built, the trim carpenters had some crafty ways to make walls/ceilings look fancy but with much lower cost. In my dining room, they used simple shaddow box molding below the chair rail BUT we painted below the chair rail with a gloss paint. The gloss paint makes the drywall and molding below the chair rail look like painted wood panels. I have seen this same technique used in restaurants but they must have used a commercial sprayer becuase you could not tell that it wasn't a wood wall panel unless you were inches away.

The other product they used was a pine bead board (maybe 1.5 inches wide) which you can get at a much lower price than the 5 inch T&G. By staining the beadboard a dark color, they made my witch hat celing in my outdoor covered deck look like a million bucks. If you don't like knots, you can prime the bead board and then spray it with a nice stained wood like color. Check out some of the higher end paints - the colors and textures are really nice. They also make 4' x 8' beaded panel sheets and you could cut the sheets on an angle to get the diagonal look you want.

I have also looked into faux painting - and saw some examples in a very expensive house. I was amazed at how they made plain drywall look like actual wood - grain, knots, and all. I don't know how much it costs but it has to be less than using real wood.

I think the combo of trim molding and paint is a cost effective way to make your walls look nice without shelling out tons of bucks and is something you can do yourself.

I'll second the idea. Just a single heavy chair railing around a room with a darker colour below and a lighter one above makes a classy impact. I'd avoid the heavy wood in a basement unless you're going for the smokey pub look. Ugh!

yea but my original premise was to eliminate the spackling and mess...with all the stuff I have down there I would have a cleaning nightmare...

andre

spackling isn't so bad - its the sanding part where you get the mess. If you have the time, don't use sandpaper. Use damp sponges and wet sand the joints. I have not tried this on a really large scale, but for any drywall repairs and some full walls I have done - I never use sandpaper. When you work joints with a sponge, they come out very smooth and all the excess winds up in the bottom of the water bucket. You have to work the joints when the compound is almost dry but not completely hardened. It takes more time but it is a much cleaner approach. Note that you use a damp sponge - not one that is soaked. ANd you must rinse it off frequently as compond collects in the knooks and crannies of the sponge. But it works great.

I also forgot to mention another trick my builder used. There is a product made by Sherwin Williams called Wall Prep. It is basically a very thick paint - almost like a very loose plaster. After the joints were done, they rolled this stuff on to provide a nice textured layer over the dryall seams. If you look at my walls, you cannot tell where the drywall seams are - not even with your nose up to the wall. So the combo of the wet sanding to get a decent seam and then the prep could reduce the mess considerably and leave you with sharp looking wall surface.

I plan on wet sanding my joints and using 1 or 2 coats of wall prep (BTW - it isn't cheap). I expect that even with just 1 coat of that stuff, a decent job on the drywall seams (which is about all I could ever hope for doing it myself) will be completely hidden.

I also saw the drywallers on my new house use some really cool tools I had never seen before. One of them was a roller that made perfect drywall seam. They pumped the drywall into this thing and just rolled it along the wall. Presto - a perfect final coat. All they had to do was lightly sand in a few places but I would just use a damp sponge instead. I am hoping the make a roller tool that does corners too. I always find those to be the hardest to get right.

If all you are trying to do is avoid a mess, using wood coverings on the wall is an awefully expensive way to work around that.

...maybe I'll try....I'd loveto see that tool too!

I was curious too - and found them. Bummer at the cost. For that price, it should put the mud on for me and clean up too.

Unless I can find a used set at a good price, I will stick to hand trowels.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mud Rolling Tools

Bazookas have been around for half a century. That makes them "new" in the building industry, in which innovation runs like water off a duck's back.

I can't understand why this tool costs 1300 bucks. The starter set from Ames is $1800. Unless you plan on drywalling for a living, it doesn't make sense.

Another idea for low mess wall coverings is venetian plaster. You still do the taping but no sanding. Just put the plaster over the top. I have seen the combo of wood panels (or the fake wood approach) below chair rail and venetian plaster above the chair rail and it looks great.