I need to finish up my screen porch and would welcome all thoughts and input.
The facts... The porch is approximately 38' x 15'. One long wall is concrete block...low
32" wall between full height columns, screens in the arched openings; the screened area stops about 18" from the ceiling. The other three walls abut living space and are standard 2x4 construction, insulated, sheathed with 7/16" ply. Each of the 2x4 walls has French doors - leading to interior rooms - more or less centered in the wall; the long 2x4 wall also has large windows on both sides of the French door. Floor is slab dropped about 4" from rest of house and will be tiled. The ceiling slopes up from 8' at the long outside wall to about 11' at the long inside wall; it has been already sheet rocked and painted.What I want... My wife says I need to get something over the 7/16 ply sheathing and make everything pretty. Whatever I wind up putting up needs to be less than 3/8" thick (so I can trim doors & windows easily) so stucco is out. My thought was to use 1/4" cement board on the portions of the short walls where rain might possibly blow in and 1/4" sheet rock elsewhere. Over that, an applied texture...wife doesn't want anything with a lot of texture so knock down is out; she doesn't want orange peel either so I was thinking of "skip towel" smoothed a bit with a damp sponge...sort of "semi-smooth but irregular". Other suggestions? I also thought about using Hardie-Board in place of cementboard/sheet rock but see no particular advantage to it. Do you? If so, what?
Questions...
- What are your thoughts about using the 1/4" cement board and sheetrock?
- Do I need anything between the plywood sheathing and whatever is put on it? If so, what and why?
- Assuming cement board on potentially wind blown rain areas, can I do the joints with thinset? If not, what would you suggest?
- Any reason thinset can't be used for joints in the drywall portion and for the texture coat? If OK to use, fiberglass tape?
Thanks for your time, I look forward to your replies, suggestions and knowledge.