There are many things that have been great advancements in home improvement over the last one hundred years and dry wall or sheet rock is one of them. As the next generation of plaster coating for walls, dry walling has gained wide spread acceptance and the standard for homes and companies when it comes to wall coverings. This is only natural as dry wall is nothing more then plaster that has been hardened in between a layer of paper on each side. This has made the plaster easier to work with and made the finished product much easier to deal with in terms of painting and such. Today most people have dry wall in their homes. Not only is it easy to use and too paint but it is also a great way to further insulate a home against the outside elements. It is written that homes featuring one half inch thick dry wall can save as much as thirty percent on the heating and cooling bills. That percentage goes up when the dry wall that is used is over three fourths of an inch thick. This is just one of the many advantages of having dry wall in a home.

Dry walling is a skill that just about anyone can learn. Using the best tools that are available one can easily learn how to hang and finish dry wall without a lot of trouble. This is due to the fact that dry walling is so much easier to do then the standard plastering. There is a lot less work and a lot less in the way of necessary tools and materials that go into dry walling as opposed to standard plastering. Most often a person has the proper tools for dry walling laying around the garage with a few small exceptions. This is in stark contrast to plastering where there is a lot of tools that are needed and most of them are things that a normal person would not have in their possession. For dry walling a person should have a good hammer or screw gun, a strong ladder or maybe a pair of dry wall stilts, and most important is a taping knife.

The first step to dry walling is too hang the board. Start with the largest sections first and work your way around the room. This is assuming that you are not doing the ceiling. If you are doing the ceiling then you will need to start with it too make sure everything comes out right. When hanging the board whether with nails or screws you will need to make sure that the heads of the fasteners are sunk into the dry wall. This will make it possible for you to cover the holes with dry wall mud later on when the time is right.

Once you have all the dry wall hung you will need to make sure that the joints are covered. For this you will need mud and tape. Simply apply a thin layer of mud to the joint then run tape down it. Cover the tape with mud and wait for it to dry before sanding it smooth.