After refinishing most of the drywall in my basement remodeling project I decided to try to tackle two little areas of drywall where my drywall tape had “bubbled up”. There was actually a layer or two of dried joint compound over these two spots, but they had popped out from the wall a little bit and when I pushed them in with my finger they flexed a teeny bit, which mean that my drywall tape had not adhered to the joint compound beneath it….

After I had put up the drywall in my basement refinishing project it was time for me to finish my walls with joint compound and tape and make them nice and smooth. I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t an expert in joint compound when I started this, and I’m certainly no professional now, but I have learned a few things as I’ve gone over my walls again and again….

Like many home improvement projects, hanging drywall is one half art, one half science and one half luck.

I learned this first-hand as I completed hanging the drywall in my first real full room renovation. I’ve mentioned before that I’m refinishing a room in my basement that was framed out and paneled years ago. It even has a permanent drywall popcorn ceiling, which I may eventually remove, but that will come at a later time. To remodel this room I decided the 70′s were over and I wanted to get rid of the paneling.

My first idea …

Having trouble finding a stud in a wall is an almost universally shared problem that most homeowners have experienced more than once.

Even people who don’t have any idea how houses are built know that to hang something really heavy you almost always need to screw or nail into a stud and not just Sheetrock or plaster. Almost all homes built in the last hundred years or so have been built using a wooden or metal framing structure which is filled with insulation on the outside and covered for protection. Inside the home all that framing is …