Chat with an old framer changed my finishing order

Last week I was hanging board in a basement remodel and this 60 year old framer walked through. He saw me taping before I got the corners shimmed straight. He said, 'You're painting a crooked wall, kid.' I always did the floating last, thought it was faster. Now I check every frame with a straightedge first. Costs me 20 extra minutes but zero callbacks. Anyone else had a vet hand you a fix that felt obvious after?

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mary_wells28d ago

My uncle ran trim crews for 30 years and he always said the same thing, measure the wall before you mud it, not after. I started doing this on every job about 2 years ago and it saved me on a $4,000 kitchen reno where the old plaster was off by damn near an inch in the middle. The thing nobody talks about is how much easier it is to fix a hump in the framing with shims before you tape than it is to build out a whole mud coat to hide it. You get faster at it too, after maybe 10 jobs the extra 20 minutes turns into 10. Good on you for listening to the old guy, most of us learn the hard way.