There are definitely limits on the ”okay” factor of plywood before it turns into an “ick” factor. At least the floor appears to be finished.

It's neat to have a matching toilet seat...

I might have run the toe-kick horizontally to blend In with the floor instead of in line with the toilet seat and walls, but what do I know?

it looks AMAZING

You'd better be beyond sure that you like this because it'll be extremely hard to re-sell. It's extremely taste-specific.

The porch is lovely, but I don't like any of the rest. The tiny windows are the worst detail; aside from the room with the large glass doors, the place must be dark as the grave inside.

Simple, affordable, HONEST

It's fake-simple. Materials aside, the quality of the build is excellent; the finishings here are anything but simple or affordable. No trim to cover up mistakes. Can't use any wood filler. No paint to cover up bad spots. This isn't plain old plywood that you'd pick up at Lowes.

If you say minimal, I'll agree. But not simple or affordable.

How is a house honest? I really don't get it.

dn drywall would be cheaper than playoff to buy. it's the tape and mud and paint that gets you

And labor. The labor is more than all the parts associated with drywall.

The exterior concrete panels aside (and it's a big aside since we don't know materials and labor cost, plus durability over time, plus maintenance), both the exterior and interior appear to be very labor intensive to align exterior battens and interior panel joints.

Yes -- the exterior looks like it would be very labor-intensive. And every couple months you'd have to pressure-wash the exterior because dust, leaves, and more would pile up on those small ledges. This house, especially with its sleek dark paint, would look awful with gunk all over it.

I'm imagining living in a house with all that plywood and in my mind it feels like a constant battle with splinters and a few months of migraines while it all outgases.

I'm thinking about the cabins from summer camp.

I expect they sanded the plywood and covered it with a clear protecting layer of some sort.

as much as I like this house, the black facade would be a no go for me.

Black is the hardest color to keep clean.

Wow, my mom was really ahead of her time when she installed OSB on the basement walls when I was a kid back in the early 90's to "finish" the basement. She did paint it, however, and the little chips provided some "character" to the walls....lol. She did it because it was dirt cheap at the time, could be installed by her and my dad with screws, and didn't require a drywall finisher.

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how about this plywood room? is this too much? I think this is absolutely gorgeous

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That looks more finished than in the Australia house in the OP. But this is a cool house, those window coverings!

Agree !

it looks like the plywood is a lighter material and a higher grade. bcx plywood around here is $30 a sheet. I wonder what ab or ac plywood sell for.

Check the price of Finnish plywood or even Baltic Birch plywood. Chances are that's what's in the photos.

I've actually priced Birch plywood before. they don't even come in 4x8 sheets. it's something weird like 5x5.

very pricey

That looks like a cabinet grade plywood - possibly with a pre-finished veneer. With that level of precision - it's a VERY COSTLY finish material. Love it. I think it's a very different aesthetic from the original house, and certainly a higher level of precision / execution.

janni, really? to me the plywood looks only a little better. I think it looks better because there is some lacquer on it and the reveal?? work is nice

btw, I love plywood cabinet doors and we are planning to go that route. diy to save money.
example

Ensure a sharp plywood saw blade and slow, careful cuts

to avoid chipping and splintering.

D E, I’m intrigued by your diy plan. How will you finish off the surfaces and the edges?

I am not sure what grade of plywood the cabinets are, but the rooms above definitely looks like Baltic Birch.

I strongly suspect that for any decent plywood you are looking at a materials cost roughly equal to drywall installed. Additionally, installing the plywood is going to be more expensive as it is going to take more people a lot more time. 3/4" plywood is going to be 80 lbs per sheet and since your fastening system is going to show you are are going to have to exactly measure the location of fasteners and drill them with a countersink bit with a depth stop. To get them to fit exactly and look good you are probably going to have to install them over quality furring strips.

One of the biggest problems being that labor for drywall is crazy cheap. You are going to be hard pressed to find any material that can compete simply because even free materials are going to cost more to install than drywall costs for materials and installation.

As for DIYing cabinet doors, I am all for DIYing cabinets. If you have a few good tools, really take your time and plan extensively you can DIY cabinets. Having said that, a slab front would be the very last place I would start. You can do shaker doors with a table saw and nothing else, in fact I have done so many times when I needed to replace a shop cabinet door. Slabs are much tougher.

@bpath

old school way - sand them smooth and a couple of coats of spray-on lacquer and good to go.

@bry911

what is the cost of drywall labor, including taping and mudding, in your area?

Why do you say a slab is more difficult than a shaker? im stuck on slabs but I want to understand what makes them more difficult.

Yes, but it all depends on one's aesthetic preferences, and the architectural style of the house.

I'm going to crawl out on a limb here, guessing Shaker may not be Debbie's preferred architectural style.

But I could be wrong...it has happened...

That said, Shaker design is pretty cool.

lol. Shaker is actually my second favorite style, after flat panel (slab)

what is the cost of drywall labor, including taping and mudding, in your area?

$45 per sheet last time I looked ($1.40 per square foot). Drywall runs $11 for a 4 x 8 sheet. That gets you somewhere under $60 per sheet installed. A BB/BB Baltic Birch runs $70 per sheet right now. You can probably find some alternative of questionable origin for $50-$60 per sheet. But anything that uses quality glues grade C or better is going to cost you.

Why do you say a slab is more difficult than a shaker? im stuck on slabs but I want to understand what makes them more difficult.

First, wood is more forgiving than plywood. You can sand out or correct mistakes in wood rails and stiles that you can't sand out or correct in plywood.

Next, you still have to edge band which isn't hard but also is not as easy for an amateur as it looks.

Finally, well really not finally but I am running short on time, longer cuts compound problems. For a 15"x 30" shaker door with 1.5" rails and stiles, you have to be close to dead-on for 6". You can correct almost everything else in glue up and mistakes don't compound. For a 15" x 30" slab door you have to be dead-on (not just close to dead-on) for 90".

Two reasons for using Finnish plywood or Baltic Birch is their solid, high quality filler plys and their pre--finished faces, making surface finishing and edge banding optional.

Two reasons for using Finnish plywood or Baltic Birch is their solid, high quality filler plys and their pre--finished faces, making surface finishing and edge banding optional.

True, but the problem using a true Baltic Birch produced in Finland or Russia is that they default to 125cm X 125cm which is 5' X 5'. There are certainly Russian and Finnish manufacturers who have retooled their factory to produce 4' x 8' pieces for America, but they have less price competition and still must produce the 5' x 5' pieces used in Europe thus essentially requiring two production lines which makes them much less price competitive.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Baltic Birch we see in America is actually from China. Obviously, China doesn't have a whole lot of forest land in the Baltic region so why we still call it Baltic Birch is beyond me.

Thanks for that info BRY911. I havent priced drywall labor in my area. My brother priced drywall in his city and was getting quotes of 20k to remove and redo drywall for a house not a lot more than 2k sq ft.

I understand what you mean by having to be more accurate with the slab - fortunately for us we have a delta unisaw (1970s model - better made than today's models) that we bought from a retiring cabinet maker. it has a vega professional fence and is - as we say in texas - "dead nuts accurate" and cuts through hardwood like butta. Of course, any decent saw can be made very accurate with a cross cut jig :)

"Unfortunately, a lot of the Baltic Birch we see in America is actually from China. Obviously, China doesn't have a whole lot of forest land in the Baltic region so why we still call it Baltic Birch is beyond me. "

interesting. Did you know that most of the "imported from Italy" olive oil we consum is also from China?

Italy imports almost as much olive oil from China as it exports, so most of the olive oil coming out of Italy actually came to Italy from China

It doesn't have anything to do with the saw you are using. What are you using to break down your sheets? I really don't want to be rude and I am not trying to shut down this part of the conversation, but I also really don't want to argue woodworking at this moment.

I will say that I started my woodworking experience with a saw that would easily cost $20,000 today, yet I could probably get better results today from the $300 Porter-Cable that I throw in my truck for site work than I could then.

There is no substitute for experience. In the scheme of woodworking projects cabinets are fairly easy, and still some are more forgiving than others. That doesn't mean you will not get great results whichever path you choose, but some designs certainly increase the odds.

we dont need to argue woodworking - its a hobby for me- I'm good.

I do find that my saw makes it extremely easy to make acurate cuts without a lot of measuring. I set the desired width on the fence rail and rip away.

For breaking down sheet goods we use a track saw.

we used a $500 contractor saw at a friends place - what a piece of ****!

I think id rather use a circular saw and guide than some of these cheap "table" saws

I havent priced drywall labor in my area. My brother priced drywall in his city and was getting quotes of 20k to remove and redo drywall for a house not a lot more than 2k sq ft.

The size of the house is a bit immaterial. A 12 x 12 room is 144 square feet but assuming 9' ceilings requires 576 square feet of drywall. Add a large reach in closet and you can pretty easily get to 765 square feet. Fourteen rooms just like that would be 2016 square feet and 10,710 square feet of drywall.

Or plywood if that is what you choose to use. Actually probably more plywood as you would probably have more waste.

Before I post this, please let me note that I am a bit frustrated and probably should wait.

DE - if you are a hobby woodworker then why did you ask the string of questions that you did, especially after I noted I was short on time?

If you are an experienced hobby woodworker then you understand the advantages panelized construction. You also know why slab doors are not the place to start woodworking. Even allowing that you didn't know that, you could have jumped in at any time and noted that you are an experienced woodworker and saved me the trouble. Why say you have a good saw? Why not just say I am a hobby woodworker and this should be in my wheelhouse?

In so many of your posts you invite responses from people who are really just trying to help and then start dribbling out little facts until you finally spring on them that everything they posted was unnecessary because you already knew it. Which normally wouldn't bother me but I was taking a second from grading and now feel like I would have been better off just smashing my nuggets in the drawer.

in other news, one thing this thread has done for me is show me how much I really like plywood. I plan to use it liberally in our build.

I don't think it has to be that expensive either. this is the b side of some bcx plywood I bought last weekend at home Depot. $35 a sheet. I personally think this level is good enough for what I'll use it for. as usual, ymmv

D E

If you like plywood then go for it. If you are doing this to save money it is a poor place to save money. Even at $35 per sheet, you are not likely to see any real savings using plywood over drywall.

We put some plywood in a small barn last year and it was a massive PITA, we usually use planks because they are so much easier to work with but this time we did a couple of stalls and one small end with plywood. It took a couple of farm hands and myself the better part of three days. Thankfully all of our electric is surface mounted which really reduced the work. I can't imagine having to cut out for electrical boxes.

Walk through your current home and count the drywall penetrations, including any lights, outlets, doorways, windows, HVAC, plumbing, etc. Now add 20 minutes for every penetration. Remember that you are going to have to measure the exact spot and cut it with power tools, not just grab the cut out tool after nailing the edges.

In the end, any absolute dollar savings you have, which are going to be less than you suspect after waste, you are going to destroy in extra time spent. I would guess that it is going to take you at least 5 times longer to do plywood than drywall, if you have never done drywall before. If you are experienced with drywall, it will be exponentially longer.

So then the question becomes is BCX good enough? If you are going to spend longer on this than anything else you are doing in the house, which you absolutely are, then is the marginal cost for a much better looking material just going to shine all the more?

Can you visualize that wild grain of American plywood over all the walls and ceiling for room after room?

Adding a sealer will further accentuate the grain.

Compare the grain in the photo above with the photos of the interior rooms further above. Do you see how the grain is minimized in the room photos?

That's another advantage of Finnish or Baltic Birch plywood: the face grain isn't in your face as much.

Like many other things, you pay for what you get...

I would probably use a Maple plywood. If you are stuck on Home Depot then you can get their Purebond Maple for $55 per sheet. I can stomach expanses of Maple more than most other things. I would still use it in moderation, but that is just my preference. I personally love maple floors and ceilings with drywall on the walls.

Honestly, if you like plywood, I would use it sparingly and intentionally. Don't just slap it everywhere because you may find that over time, seeing it everywhere makes you love it less.

I think plywood slab cabinet doors would be cool. I actually have those in this old kitchen right now....lol. I'm sure they were "cheap" when the house was built in the early 70's but I've grown a certain affinity for them :) It looks the edges have been routed so the edge angles toward the back of the door. That's probably not the look you want, but from the front, you can't seen the angle.

Plywood everywhere would grow old fast, to me anyway. Maybe do an accent wall here and there. Do a lot of research on what to clear coat it with so it won't turn yellow over time.

Yet another issue for using plywood for walls and ceilings is figuring out the joint pattern and fastening technique. And then there is the pattern for lighting and penetrations.

A very comprehensive discipline is required.

Study the interior photos above to see one method for this discipline, which will dominate the dimensioning system for the entire house, based around plywood panel size.

For example, in the room photos above, do you see how window size resulted from the plywood pattern?

And look how lighting and the opening for lighting was handled.

A great deal of pre-planning. Little room for error. It's much more than simply cutting panels to fit ceiling height.

Great discussion so far!

Bry, plywood wouldnt necessarily be to save money. I think done right it would be MORE expensive than simple dry wall. I do plan to use it for all cabinet fronts though -put more "custom" in " custom house".

I'll have to check out the pure bond maple - thanks for the suggestion.

Virgil,

I dont see that much difference in the grain I showed vs what these houses used. I see as much graining. maybe its just me.

shead

"Honestly, if you like plywood, I would use it sparingly and intentionally. Don't just slap it everywhere because you may find, that over time, seeing it everywhere makes you love it less."

I AGREE!

this is something I read a long time ago when I was considering using plywood for the whole house. It quickly helped me reconsider.

"plywood has one major defect- it can be put on too easily!" Lol.

Here is a rough render of what Im thinking

"...plywood can be put on too easily..."

Sure, almost any lummox can nail wall sheathing to studs using 20d nails, but....

Look at the photos of interiors above with plywood as a finish product.

Does that look plywood panels attached with 20d nails?

"plywood has one major defect- it can be put on too easily!"

First, at the time the article was written I would think formaldehyde was a bigger defect...

However, if you read the article it actually is clear the statement is a literary device and the article is pointing out that it is easy to install incorrectly and not see the consequences until later.

Bry, that's why I said I reconsidered against using plywood after reading the book

I still think plywood is more trouble than it is worth, however, if this is the route you want to go here is some advice.

First, talk to a cabinet maker supply company and get an account if needed. My price on cabinet grade plywood is better than retail at big box stores and the product is much better.

Next, get your electrician to pull extra wire into your boxes and use convertible old work boxes or better yet loop wires into the wall without boxes. Whether or not it will pass the rough in inspection without any boxes attached to the framing is questionable. When installing adjust the boxes to fit into the hole rather than trying to precisely measure hole position and make the cut to fit over the box.

Finally, I would use 1x4 furring strips for attachment points rather than trying to plan out stud locations. You lose 3/4" out of every room but I wouldn't have faith in other strategies. Good luck.

good points Bry .thanks

does anyone know about reveal systems for ply wood?

I din't know if plywood panels expand and contract like other wood products, but if so installing taped gyp board on all room surfaces, prior to installing plywood, would probably be a good idea.

does anyone know about reveal systems for ply wood?

A bit. If you are using good wood you can make your own. You can also use the T-channel mounting system from many of the panel manufacturers and a router to use your own panels with their system. I am not a real fan of that unless you want the look. Frankly the one advantage that plywood systems have is the ability to take them off and get into the walls.

I suspect I have very different priorities than you do, but were I doing this, I would use sill gasket on 1x4 attachment points and sex bolts to attach the panels. That would seriously slow down installation but I could remove the panels anytime I wanted inside the wall. Which is where I would hide all my pirate treasure.

I din't know if plywood panels expand and contract like other wood products

For practical purposes it does not. In reality wood still changes longitudinally as it is still hygroscopic, and since plywood binds everything to longitudinal growth it too expands, but it expands 0.00002" per inch per % change in relative humidity. Under normal interior conditions a 10' wall will grow .012" which is about the 1/3rd the thickness of a credit card. If you are using wood studs you can expect the growth to be nearly equal to them.

I'm wondering about the role of plywood panelling, especially removable panelling, when it comes to meeting code for fire resistance. I know that here in Australia the plywood would have to be chemically treated, which I assume takes it out of cheap big box store materials, or it would have to be laid directly on a fire-resistant material like cement board to comply.

"I'm wondering about the role of plywood panelling, especially removable panelling, when it comes to meeting code for fire resistance."

Well don't do it on the wall between the garage and the house.

grandma used to have panelling on the ceilings but it was caked with cigarette smoke and moisture made it warp and fall down in parts

she had a pool table in that room and it was kind of like a bar. glad it didn't fall down on the billiards players at the time. sheesh

grandma used to have panelling on the ceilings but it was caked with cigarette smoke and moisture made it warp and fall down in parts

A plumber (presumably) decided not to glue my plumbing vent and when updating a bathroom the vent came loose. One day after a fairly brief rain I came home to find the drywall from my dining room ceiling on my dining room floor along with the 1830's Walnut table it took with it. Neglect can destroy just about anything in a home but for moisture concerns, I would take just about anything before drywall.