9

I hung drywall horizontally in my bedroom and hired a company to mud and tape it so that I could prime and paint. As you know, drywall sheets are recessed along the edges in order to hold drywall compound. Well, they did not mud along the bottoms of any of the walls where the drywall sheets recess. Shouldn't they have even so much as applied a sloppy layer of mud to fill the recess so that my base moulding would have something flat to be attached to? Otherwise, when I go to put on the base moulding, it's going to dip inward.

Here's a picture of a corner in my room where the bottoms are entirely unfinished. It seems like the bevelled edges along the bottoms of these sheets should have been filled in to provide a flat, vertically level surface to hold moulding.

enter image description here

ChrisF
  • 16,973
  • 5
  • 51
  • 74
oscilatingcretin
  • 5,932
  • 53
  • 99
  • 114

3 Answers3

15

Typically, drywall sheets hung horizontally are hung with the upper full sheet first against the ceiling, cut bottom sheet last. This is so you will have an indent at the top to tape and mud. Unless your wall is exactly 8 feet tall, the cut of the bottom sheet is at the floor, thus no indent. Even if you have an indent at the very bottom against the floor, it is only about 2 inches wide. Common baseboard is 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches wide and will bridge this indent and is nailed mid and high. We have never put mud on the very bottom of a sheet, even it the indent is there. I suppose if your baseboard is very narrow, you may have to ask the mudders to fill that area, but that is very uncommon and would be a special request.

shirlock homes
  • 58,628
  • 3
  • 87
  • 168
0

When tapers have finished horizontally hung sheetrock that I installed, they have never mudded the bottom even when it was not cut at the bottom. The indent is not a big problem. I have been fortunate enough to find a trim installer who did a couple houses for me who coped his cuts when installing base trim. It would not have mattered how far off the angle was or how big the indent was, he was good enough to trim it without any problems or gaps.

Even if you are not a great trimmer like myself we have good enough tools today that after a little playing around with angles and back-cutting you can do an appreciable job. If your guests don't like the joinery, send them home or find a better trimmer; there are bigger things to worry about.

Daniel Griscom
  • 6,319
  • 33
  • 33
  • 43
TWIG
  • 1
0

I’ve run into this exact issue many times and I’ll put the thin end of a shim behind the baseboard at the studs and nail baseboard top and bottom at the studs. If you nail to into the bottom plate in between studs, the top of the baseboard will rotate away from the wall. Only nail the the top (and bottom) at the studs. Nailing at 16” centres should be enough. But if you need to nail in between studs, shim and nail into the bottom plate. You can also back out the bottom drywall until the baseboard is plumb.

Paul B.
  • 1
  • 1