any quick n dirty sheetrock finishing ideas?

[floatee]

i've just finished sheetrocking one of my garage bays and am wondering how to easily finish the walls. Being what it is, I don't want to do the whole mud thing. I just don't need a pristine indoor-quality finish. At the same time, I don't want to just slap primer and paint on it. Is there any way to finish a wall that's halfway between the two extremes?

Is there anything I can cover the sheetrock butt joints with that'll cover the seam but not necessarily leave me with a perfect finish? Ditto the screw dimples?

thanks!

[trader4]

Most of the garages I've seen use a rough coat of mud. They just skip the multiple coats and sanding. I'd go with what works and is common.

[kevin]

Go with just one rough coat of mud over the joints. Let it dry for a day or two, then go over it with a sponge. Use a bucket of warm water, and a big thick sponge (e.g. 6x8x3 inch variety) -- just dip the sponge, squeze a bit so you don't have dripping water, and quickly run over the joints. This will smooth out the mud quite a bit, which will make the whole thing look pretty nice, and will make painting easier on the mostly smooth surface. Let the mud dry again for a few hours.

I'm not great at mud, and even I could probably do the entire mud in an hour or two, then the sponging in 30 min or so.

[Patrick Cleburne]

The traditional method in my neighborhood is to hire a few Mexican illegals ;-)

Patrrick

[C & E]

Yep, this works pretty nicely and you get a pretty smooth joint. If you are real careful with the application of your joint coumpound this could be a 2 step process.

[Chris Lewis]

According to [e-mail] :

"Standard" mudding by an expert usually means that you do three passes over each joint, each time feathering it out wider and wider. A day or two for each pass to dry.

I didn't want to spend that much time when I finished the sheetrock in my garage either.

As a compromise, I ran fiberglass jointing tape on the joints, and did one moderately generous pass (roughly equivalent to an expert's second pass) with a proper trowel on the joints, and did a quick pass on the screw dimples. Taking care to not leave lumps.

Next day, sanded a few places where I carelessly left lumps, then primed and painted.

I'm quite happy with the result. If you get up close and personal and inspect it, it certainly ain't perfect, but it's plenty good enough.

[PipeDown]

Textured wall paint comes in several consistancies and can be applied with a roller or sponge or hopper (air gun). Most paint brands also make a texture.

[chickenwing]

aaaand how!

I hate installing drywall.

The secret to less labor is to take the time to put the mud on nice. (some places need 3 and 4 passes of mud)

Thin layers dry very fast...by the time you've detailed an area, you can litely sand and detial it again.

Each pass you make, yure amazed at how smooth this is getting...and you can take it to any level of proffessional.

[The hooligan]

What kind of cheap ass builders do you have there. I have'nt seen an unfinished garage in 20 years.

[floatee]

thanks much all. now -- is there a brand of mud or type of mud that''ll probably work the best for this kind of use?

[Chris Lewis]

According to PipeDown :

Ick. I'd rather throw open paint cans at the wall.

I hate textured finishes. Impossible to clean or repair, and messy to repaint, and they shed, sometimes even without touching it.

It's a _garage_.

[chickenwing]

what's does my technic have to do with garages being finished

[ameijers]

Chuckle- yeah, I grew up with the 3-pass scenario, and was real suprised watching the finish crew tape and mud a false wall at work- they taped and mudded all in one step, and came back next day to do a quick pass with an abrasive pad of some sort, held near a shop vac. They then tack-ragged the whole thing and left, and painter came the following day. Great looking joints, and almost no dust, where remodels I had worked as a kid left all horizontal surfaces caked. I was impressed, and told the crew so. Mebbe they had some special joint compound, or were just real good at what they do. I'd like to hire a crew like them to tape and mud my garage, once I get around to fixing the half-ass not-quite-finished firebreak drywall job previous owner did.

aems sends....

[chickenwing]

ameijers wrote: not-quite-finished firebreak drywall job previous

Mud is best put on with two knives. One large one small. The small one is the helper, it is constantly moving mud on the large knife. Each knife is always keeping each other's blade clean.

It can be alot of fun once you get a groove going.

For the main stretcher joints, I put a ball of mud on the large blade. Relax the arm and pull with the body. You get long clean sweeps. don't expect any load of mud to go very far, you gotta move the mud from the bucket to the wall.

I know A guy who had a machine that would put mud on the tape. It's very common, in the trade. He would travel to taping competitions, it's amazing what some of those guys can do. )stilts and all.

[Greg O]

The heck you say!! My garage is nicely taped and textured, good enough job for anyone's living room. With a light texture you can hide the mistakes in the mud job, and it still cleans easy enough. As far as repair, well, it is a garage. so what if the repair don't match 100%! As far as shedding, the only problems I have with the walls shedding the texture is where for some reason or another the wall got and stayed wet for some time. My garage is pushing twenty years old. A couple years ago I did a major re-paint. Before the painting I removed any soft spots, or damaged areas in the walls, mudded them, and shot them with texture again. It looks as good as the day it was built!

As for the OP, I would take the time to do a real mud job, tape, screw holes, and everything, but take some time and put on 3 coats of mud. Then when it looks just about good enough, rent, borrow, or steal a texture gun and put a good layer of wet texture over everything. With a wet texture it will lay down a bit and not be so rough, but still hide the mistakes in the half-ass mud job, kind of an orange peel surface. Give it a coat of good primer and some semi gloss white paint and you will have a garage to be proud of! Greg

[RicodJour]

Why would he need three coats if he's going to texture it? I thought the idea was to get this done "quick and dirty" like the subject line says. I also don't see what the texture achieves.

The quickest and easiest way for a beginner to get reasonable results is to use a bucket of standard joint compound over perforated adhesive paper joint tape, followed by a second coat of the same compound. If he's careful to not goober the stuff all over the wall, he can probably get away without sanding (the wet sanding advice is spot on). From there he should hit it with primer and see what it looks like. If he can live with it, keep painting, otherwise hitting up the rough spots with a little touchup spackle or compound prior to spot priming and finish paint will give him as good results as a garage would need.

R

[Greg O]

Why three coats? Because three light coats will generally give better results than one or two thick ones. Texture takes very little time or money and covers allot of sins. The OP will end up doing what ever he wants, I just gave my opinion as to what I would do. Greg