Looking Beneath the Paint

We're having some work done on the house right now, including some interior painting.  Yes, I know, we could do it ourselves, but to be honest, we wouldn't be very good at it, and we don't have tons of free time.  Besides, part of the painting work also involves repairing parts of the ceiling and walls where the drywall has cracked or buckled, and I don't know the first thing about repairing that.  The guys we've hired are terrific.  And it's a good thing.

We assumed that the cracks and buckling were due to the house settling or something of the sort.  Turns out, not so much.  The crack in the ceiling -- a major crack running from one side of the living room to the other -- was caused by the simple fact that when we built the house 14 years ago, the original drywallers didn't attach the wall boards to planks with the screws.  They didn't attach the wall boards to anything.  The missed the joists and didn't bother to correct the mistake.  We were lucky the drywall only cracked.  It could have collapsed entirely.  And the buckling?  The metal beading on the corners wasn't screwed in either.  Those original drywallers just stuck the beading on the wet mud (ie, spackle) and hoped it would stick when the mud dried.

I know this was 14 years ago -- water under the bridge, as they say.  It's costing us a bit to repair this stuff, but not so much that it's really a hardship.  But still, I can't help but be ticked off.  There's no excuse for shoddy work, and these guys did some seriously shoddy work.  The folks working for us now are blown away by how bad the old work was.  As I say, it happened a long time ago; I shouldn't let it bother me.

But if you're having work done on your house, or your building a new place, keep an eye on what's happening.  Just sayin'....