Do it yourself with drywall: walls and ceiling (video)

Despite the fact that drywall was used in Soviet times, it was widely used only in the last two decades. Work with drywall with your own hands is quite affordable for a simple layman with a minimum of building skills, and the scope of this material is extremely wide. It is ideal for leveling walls and ceilings in apartments, erecting all kinds of arches, interior partitions and creating other interior details that give the apartment its individuality.

Drywall is appreciated by finishers for its undeniable advantages.

• The material has excellent value for money.
• In addition to solving aesthetic problems, it can be used when warming apartments, increasing their sound insulation.
• Under its surface it is easy to hide not only the irregularities of the wall, but also protruding pipes and communications.
• Work with drywall is not accompanied by such an amount of dust and dirt, such as plastering walls or whitewashing the ceiling.
• This decoration material is environmentally friendly, non-conductive, and easy to use.

All these factors determined the widespread use of drywall in repair work.

What is drywall

Before you figure out how to work with drywall, you need to decide on its types. Building material must be selected taking into account the specifics of the room and its microclimate. For convenience, the sheets of material are painted in different colors depending on the type.

• In ordinary rooms with normal humidity, gray drywall is used.

• Fireproof sheets marked with the abbreviation GKLO are painted in pink or light purple. They are used for surface decoration near stoves and fireplaces.

• The letters GKLV and green indicate the moisture-proof drywall for bathrooms and kitchens.

• For the decoration of walls and ceilings in the kitchen, you can also use sheets of dark gray or blue, marked GKLVO. They combine good moisture resistance with increased fire resistance.
• To create curved structures, GKLA arched gypsum board is often used. It has a smaller thickness - 6–7 mm and is very plastic.

The most detailed information about the types of this material and its parameters, as well as its classification according to the new GOST, can be found in the article “Basic characteristics of drywall sheet».

Drywall mounting profiles

Drywall installation can be carried out in two ways: on glue or on a frame. More often used frame structure, which has only one drawback: a more significant reduction in the interior space of the room. But with its help it is easier to align the walls or ceiling, provide heat and noise insulation of the room, hide communications.

The fastening of drywall on a frame of wooden bars is now rarely seen, it is much more convenient to use special metal profiles. Their length is standard and is 3 m, and the remaining parameters are indicated in the marking of the profile. The first number is the width of the profile, and the second is its height.

• The basis of the frame for drywall is made up of guide profiles with the designation PN or UW. Ceiling or rack profiles are mounted on them.
• For fastening false ceilings and for wall cladding, guides are used that are marked PNP or UD.
• In the guides insert ceiling profiles PP or CD, which are also used for leveling walls, which are subsequently fixed by suspensions with crabs or anchors. With their help, a frame and jumpers are formed.
• To create walls and partitions, rails are inserted into the guides, denoted by the abbreviation PS or CW.

For curved structures and arches, a special arched profile is used. There is also an angular profile designed to strengthen the outer and inner corners.

In addition, a wide variety of fasteners are produced, thanks to which work with drywall on walls and ceilings turns into an assembly of a fascinating designer.

Profiles are attached to the wall and ceiling using U-shaped brackets, self-tapping screws and dowel-nails “quick installation”. To fasten profiles to each other, you can use rivets or a notch (special mounting pliers). A lot of parts for fasteners are produced, but with a single do-it-yourself operation, most of them are not required.

Necessary tools

The tool that you will need when installing a drywall structure is better prepared in advance.

• When attaching profiles to the wall, you will have to drill a lot of holes for dowels. With a conventional impact drill, this process can turn into a real torment. Therefore, it is better to stock up with a good hammer drill.
• A screwdriver with a set of interchangeable bits will come in handy when mounting the frame on a wall or ceiling and attaching drywall sheets.
• You will also need a hammer, metal scissors, a screwdriver, a level, a plumb line, an office knife and a spatula.

This is a necessary minimum; you can expand the tool list based on your needs and capabilities.

Sheet cutting

In order to cut a sheet of drywall, you can use a regular clerical knife. With its help, an incision is made on a ruler on one side of the sheet, after which the sheet easily breaks into two parts.

If you want to cut a hole in a curved shape, such as an arch, it is better to resort to using a jigsaw. Insert a metal file into it and cut at maximum speed.

How to bend a drywall sheet

In the vast majority of cases, drywall structures have flat surfaces. But the GKL sheet can be easily bent. This can be done in a dry and wet way.

• With a dry method suitable for the steepest bends, transverse cuts are applied to the surface of the drywall sheet in increments of 1 to 5 mm. Their depth can reach 6 mm. The smaller the radius of curvature - the more often it is necessary to draw such lines. After giving the sheet the desired shape, the incisions are filled with gypsum putty.

To obtain a smooth bend, you can do without incisions. The GKL sheet is attached on one side to the prepared curved frame, the free side is slowly and carefully bent, rounded in the shape of the frame. Such work is best done together.

Check out the video tutorial to show how professionals do it:

With the wet method, the side of the GCR sheet, which will be concave, needs to be moistened. For the best effect, you can walk along the surface with a needle roller, and in its absence - with an ordinary fork. After wetting, the sheet can be carefully bent to get the desired shape. It is best to carefully lay it on the template, wrap it with tape and leave it to dry completely.

Surface preparation

Regardless of the purpose and method of fixing the drywall, the surface of the wall or ceiling needs preliminary preparation.

• Old coatings are removed. It can be paint, wallpaper or flimsy stucco.
• Large cracks are primed and sealed with cement mortar.
• The surface is treated with an antiseptic, otherwise mold or fungus may develop under the drywall.

Installation of drywall on the frame

In most cases, this method is used to level the walls. The installation procedure will be as follows:

• A line of the inner edge of the drywall sheet is drawn on the ceiling. The distance from the wall cannot be less than the thickness of the profile, i.e. 30 mm.
• The guide profile UD is screwed along this line. Our outer border should coincide with our line, and he himself will be between the wall and the mark.
• Using a plumb line, the same line is drawn on the floor and another UD profile is screwed. If everything is done carefully, the profiles will be in a single vertical plane.

• The installation of vertical racks. Each sheet of drywall should be screwed to three of these racks from the CD profile: one is located in the center of the sheet, and two at the edges. With a standard drywall width of 120 mm, vertical posts must be installed every 60 mm. Adjacent sheets will also be attached to profiles located at the edges. The verticality of the profiles is checked using the level.
• Racks are fixed using a notch or self-tapping screws. In order for the frame to become stiff, each pillar must be connected to the wall using brackets. They are attached to the wall on the dowels in increments of 500-600 mm. Subsequently, their edges are bent and attached to the profiles using self-tapping screws. In this case, it is necessary to avoid the curvature of the racks by controlling their level of verticality.

• After the frame is ready, a heater is laid in it, if it was provided for by one of the tasks of erecting the structure, and drywall is screwed.

If the ceiling is leveled with the help of drywall, then when fastening, instead of dowels, anchors are used. Ruffled plastic dowels and screws can only be used in case of light load. Also, when installing the ceiling, wire strands and “butterflies” are used, which are necessary if the distance between the ceiling and the GKL sheet is significant.

• Drywall sheets are attached to the frame with self-tapping screws 30–35 mm long. The distance between the attachment points should not exceed 20 cm, most often choose a step of 10-15 cm.

The self-tapping hats must be deepened into the sheet by a few millimeters.

Sealing joints between sheets

When attaching drywall, a gap of 1-2 mm between adjacent sheets is allowed. At the final stage, it is necessary to process these joints so that the plasterboard surface is ready for finishing.

• If there is no factory chamfer on the sheets, then it is necessary to make it with a sharp knife at an angle of 45 degrees.
• This triangular seam is filled with putty, and a net-sickle is glued on top. It is pressed with a spatula and drowned in putty. Corners are putty using special corners equipped with perforations. Also, do not forget to fill with a putty all the recesses formed at the screw-in points of the screws, otherwise the rust from them will eventually come through the finish.

• After the putty has dried, the entire surface of the drywall should be primed.
• After the time required to dry the primer, the putty is applied. The excess can subsequently be removed with fine sandpaper.

The perfect finish is ready.