Fireplaces and walls are among the finishing touches of the house, but they reflect your personality and shouldn’t be treated lightly. The work exerted within a custom house project is usually channeled towards two primary directions: the interior and the exterior of the residence. Once the main body of the building is erected, the subs take care of outside elements like wall coverings, the roof and rain gutters, finishing an attached deck, installing a driveway and an exterior lighting system. After these aspects have been dealt with, your attention turns to the inside, which implies completing fireplaces and walls and preparing everything for painting.
Finishing Fireplaces and Walls
An item that contributes to instilling a sense of intimacy and comfiness to your “nest” is the fireplace. Initially requiring a lot of work and efforts to be put in place, a chimney is now a prefabricated box that can be readily installed in a space which has been especially framed for this purpose by a carpenter. Since you can nowadays purchase insulated chimney shafts, you won’t need too much brick or stone except for outside decorative or architectural considerations.
The logic of the construction process places the installment of a hearth later in the course of the custom house project, but planning this stage is recommended to occur early in the underlying chronology. There are several reasons to support this suggestion:
- the necessary materials have to be ordered well ahead of the installation;
- you might face community restrictions regarding the type of fireplace, such as wood-burning or gas; and it is better to handle these potential hardships in advance rather than in the very last minute;
- if you want to use a particular type of fireplace (for instance, a gas-fueled one), you need to make the necessary adjustments long before you get to install it; thus, you would have to run the required plumbing to enable a gas line to fuel gas logs or to use it as a fire starter.
Precise and thorough consideration for the installment of a fireplace is needed on other grounds as well. Due to functionality and health safety reasons, a custom masonry fireplace requires a proper draft to ensure the right airflow from inside your home, up through the flue, and out of the top of the chimney. Thus, you prevent smoke from entering your house and, subsequently, the smoke detectors from continuously starting off. At the opposite pole of a poor-breathing chimney is the case when there is too much breathing, which would make it difficult for the fire to remain lit. You can overcome all of these problems by simply opting for a prefab fireplace, which is endowed with features that cancel the earlier mentioned issues.
While you are at this “chapter”, you might also want to take care of aspects such as whether you should build a raised hearth so that you facilitate the access to it or have an ash dump if the fireplace is on the ground floor. If you don’t want to sacrifice the warm air inside, you could hire some masons to construct a fresh air vent that will allow the fireplace to suck air from outside of your home.
The last “element” to be taken into consideration when it comes to installing a fireplace refers to picking up the right mantel to add to your chimney. Usually, this item is a wooden shelf that goes over your fireplace opening. You can however choose from a variety of versions that range from custom built models to prefabricated ones. In the latter case, you just have to check out the prototypes available in related stores or acquire antique mantels from older demolished houses that still look quite nice.
Irrespective of the solution that you consider to be the best in your case, make sure that the chosen mantel piece is firmly and safely secured with solid fasteners. Thus, you can carefreely hang your Christmas stockings on it.
As far as the walls are concerned, the finishing work resides in applying the proper drywall and get them ready for a potential type of wallpaper. Uniform and easy to install, this covering is made of plaster or gypsum sandwiched between two layers of heavy gauge paper. Compared to the more traditional method of wall finishing which consists of laying lath and plaster, where wood strips are used, drywall is much cheaper and provides the same benefits.
When you have to choose the type of drywall that you want to use for your custom house, remember that it comes in two common thicknesses: 3⁄8 inch and 5⁄8 inch. The thicker board is commonly used to prevent the rippling of the finished surface. This phenomenon is also called warpage and it can occur in moist climates if the homeowner has studs spaced far apart. For a better protection against this shortcoming, store the drywall in a dry place on the site until it’s installed.
This covering is generally available in sheets of 4 x 8 feet, 4 x 10 feet, or 4 x 12 feet. Having tapered edges on the long sides and full edges on the short sides, the sheets allow one to put two sides together so that a channel is created for drywall tape and mud to be applied. The two elements have the function of covering up and hiding the joints between adjoining pieces of drywall, leaving behind a flat, smooth wall.
Since the final “look” of your home depends on what type of drywall you choose, don’t stint on the budget when taking a decision. Get the best you can afford and then you will thank yourself when the job is completed. Other aspects to discuss with your drywall sub refer to:
- fancy textures – being given that texture can add depth to a room, be prepared to choose from a wide variety;
- unstippled ceilings – this will help you personalize your home in a good way in terms of quality;
- water-resistant drywall – in the dreaded event of water damage from a leak or humid climate, this type of covering will save you a lot of nuisance.
As for installing the drywall, a professional would apply it horizontally with the full sides joining at the studs. Thus, the amount of joints to be taped is reduced and the strongest area of the panel is placed across the studs. Moreover, a metal strip with a beaded edge should be installed at the outside corners, where the panels meet.
Once the fireplaces and walls are covered, your custom house is starting to look cozy and, with no cracks in the bricks or stones of the fireplace, a flue that vents properly, no bumps or warpage wrecking the neatness of your drywall, you could happily say that everything is set for the next step in enlivening your home.