UPDATE: Shiplapping a beat up stair well

Well this took longer than I thought but 2 months later I am pleased looking at the before and the after. I left all the drywall up, just screwed it in so it wasn't loose. Didn't do any other wall prep. Had tons of spots where there were highs and lows. Put it all up once and made the mistake of doing one wall and the wall adjacent, and when it came time to put the third wall up the corners were so off that it looked terrible. Pulled it all down and redid it just as folks on here suggested, go all the way up until you have 2 walls, then keep going until all three have boards on them, then go level by level all the way around making sure the corners land nicely. I nailed every board I could up on the section that was covered by the next board to minimize fasteners to fix. And after that it was obvious which boards didn't lay flat due to the wall's imperfections. The shadows below each varied wildly. To fix that I either sunk a screw through the board to the stud, or a screw through the overlap into the board below. That was enough to pull everything flush enough that the differences aren't noticeable visually. Just used a countersink bit to make sure the screw sits below the board face. Lifesaver was I found a white wood filler that made it super easy to cover screw holes and it blended in very well so painting didn't require many coats. I painted everything with watered down sherwin williams satin emerald and it covered everything in 2 coats. I ran it through one of those cheap $50 paint sprayers off amazon. Was a bit of a learning curve but after painting a few left over scrap boards outside the finish is smooth and I am happy. I haven't caulked anything yet either in these photos, the cove trim covers a lot of the short boards and thats it. All in all it was 3 walls, 7 feet wide by roughly 13 feet tall. Was roughly $1000 dollars in boards from home depot, $80 in paint, and probably $25 in nails. Used a drill, compound miter, table saw, oscillating multitool for some weird cuts, and a nail gun. In laws just got a quote for a smaller bathroom to be shiplapped and it was 7 grand so I'd like to think I did well moneywise, it took my father an I probably 18 hours total from first board to paint. Was likely much more work than figuring out how to mud the weird horizontal bulges in the drywall, but I am really thrilled with the change. Need to clean up some paint overspray, caulk a few spots, and put up a new set of handrails to arrive to finish it all up. Thanks again for the advice. I am happy with the results. Hopefully some of this was useful to someone else. u/YorkiMom6823 I know you wanted to see how this went, here it is, and thanks u/massahwahl for the tips. submitted by /u/dontchaworryboutit [link] [comments]

Apr 4, 2025 - 02:30

Well this took longer than I thought but 2 months later I am pleased looking at the before and the after.

I left all the drywall up, just screwed it in so it wasn't loose. Didn't do any other wall prep. Had tons of spots where there were highs and lows. Put it all up once and made the mistake of doing one wall and the wall adjacent, and when it came time to put the third wall up the corners were so off that it looked terrible.

Pulled it all down and redid it just as folks on here suggested, go all the way up until you have 2 walls, then keep going until all three have boards on them, then go level by level all the way around making sure the corners land nicely.

I nailed every board I could up on the section that was covered by the next board to minimize fasteners to fix. And after that it was obvious which boards didn't lay flat due to the wall's imperfections. The shadows below each varied wildly.

To fix that I either sunk a screw through the board to the stud, or a screw through the overlap into the board below. That was enough to pull everything flush enough that the differences aren't noticeable visually. Just used a countersink bit to make sure the screw sits below the board face.

Lifesaver was I found a white wood filler that made it super easy to cover screw holes and it blended in very well so painting didn't require many coats.

I painted everything with watered down sherwin williams satin emerald and it covered everything in 2 coats. I ran it through one of those cheap $50 paint sprayers off amazon. Was a bit of a learning curve but after painting a few left over scrap boards outside the finish is smooth and I am happy. I haven't caulked anything yet either in these photos, the cove trim covers a lot of the short boards and thats it.

All in all it was 3 walls, 7 feet wide by roughly 13 feet tall. Was roughly $1000 dollars in boards from home depot, $80 in paint, and probably $25 in nails. Used a drill, compound miter, table saw, oscillating multitool for some weird cuts, and a nail gun.

In laws just got a quote for a smaller bathroom to be shiplapped and it was 7 grand so I'd like to think I did well moneywise, it took my father an I probably 18 hours total from first board to paint.

Was likely much more work than figuring out how to mud the weird horizontal bulges in the drywall, but I am really thrilled with the change. Need to clean up some paint overspray, caulk a few spots, and put up a new set of handrails to arrive to finish it all up.

Thanks again for the advice. I am happy with the results. Hopefully some of this was useful to someone else.

u/YorkiMom6823 I know you wanted to see how this went, here it is, and thanks u/massahwahl for the tips.

submitted by /u/dontchaworryboutit
[link] [comments]