Urban Renewal: To The Walls

If you now have Lil Jon's smash hit in your head, you're welcome.

We are back to our kitchen re-do. After removing the tile backsplash in the kitchen, we realized that the drywall behind the tiles was not salvageable. In order to get the tiles off, much of the drywall came with it. We went back and forth on installing a new tile backsplash or replacing the drywall and painting it. We ended up liking the look of a 4-inch granite backsplash that extended upward from the countertops.

Once we realized that we could not paint over the damaged drywall, we figured brand-new drywall needeed to be installed. While we do enjoy DIY projects and saving money by doing our own labor, this was something we would not be able to tackle on our own. We enlisted the help of our friend “Craig” to find a contractor who would remove the damaged drywall and install the new drywall for us. The contractor told us he would reduce the price if we bought our own drywall and had it on site when he arrived. Since he said the magic words “reduce the price,” we did just that.

I watch a lot of HGTV and am pretty good at picking up some of the tricks of the trade. So when it came time to pick up the drywall, I made the comment “they always use 5/8-inch fireproof drywall on TV,” so we picked some up. When it did not fit into our SUV with the seats down, we had some guy help us tie it to the roof. After slowly driving home, we were happy to have all pieces intact.

As soon as the contractor arrived, he was quick to inform us that the drywall we had purchased was too thick. So while I stayed home with the contractor, HB went back to the hardware store to exchange the drywall and bring home the 1/2-inch drywall. For a trip that should take just 20 minutes, HB was still not back after 30 minutes. Turns out he purchased Round 2 and tied them onto the roof himself they flew off while he was driving home. Yep, we were “those people.” Finally, an hour later and two trips to the store, HB arrived home and the contractors got to work.

It only took the contractor two hours to remove the old drywall and install the new drywall. Once we had our drywall up and running, we painted away and were ready for our new countertops.

LESSONS LEARNED:

• Communicate with your contractor if you are not sure what materials you need to buy.

• Let people at the hardware store help you tie on items that are too big to fit inside the car.

• Sometimes it might save a lot of time and effort to let the contractor bring the materials instead of you providing them—but by providing materials you could save money. It’s just one of those decisions.

• If you let contractors move appliances on your newly re-finished floors, you should protect the floors. Clearly, this is something I wish I would have done.

Follow our journey at Urban Renewal