Yesterday and Saturday I worked on the taping for my ceiling and corners. The big hole patch was incorporated into the corner taping. Here are some pictures after the tape and one coat of joint compound. That joint compound is easy and hard to work with at the same time. Easy to get into the pan and on the wall, but hard to get it smooth and even:) It's kind of fun and frustrating at the same time-like life ;) I used a tape that is meant for edges. It is a webbed product called Strait-Flex. It was the "medium" grade. It was expensive. It is thicker than paper and I think that is a problem for me. I thought it would make it easier being more ridged and straight. There were areas where the edge would want to bow out and not lay flat. That was a problem. When it dried I had to cut these 1" sections out, at the edges where it raised up from the surface. There were 2 or 3 of these. I tried some paper tape in an area and that was easier and smoother. I just added this detail for GW info. Maybe someone else has had better luck than I with this product. Here is a faraway shot. Old plaster ceiling and wall to the left with new drywall on the right wall. I only taped the drywall to the plaster. I did not add any tape to the patch along the plaster wall: And a closeup, again old plaster ceiling and wall to the left with new drywall on the right: Now I have to put a second coat on the area. These right angle areas are hard. from far away it looks even but closeup there are irregularities. This is the first time I've drywalled. Any tips for right angles?

Absolutely it is in British Columbia. I don't know for sure if it's code, but it's absolutely standard practice in stairwells (usually the only place where you get your whole two floors height in one wall. I'm an alarm technician, and I see it (the gap and the trim that covers it) in every new house. Mine has the same bulge at the seam at the level of the upper floor, because it was built before that trick was introduced. I assume it's not a rule in the US since nobody seems to know about it, but it's standard here, and it WILL fix the OP's problem (assuming it's only one seam, but if it's several, once the gap is introduced, the others can probably be fixed.) What 'framing' would fix it, in your opinion? Clearly it's downward pressure. Sure, a heavier point load may have reduced the effect, but the direction of pressure certainly appears to be downwards. I guess that's why we leave a 3/8" gap at the bottom of a wall.

Thank you everyone. I'll make a general reply to everyone. The damaged areas have all been drywalled, taped, textured and primed, but I'm still struggling with paint colors in that area so we've been painting bedrooms instead. (whole house reno.). Basically, all the drywall was done and over. Some of the damaged areas were on walls with a flat texture (i.e. no texture) and some on walls with a sprayed orange peel. I wouldn't feel comfortable patching either kinds of texture myself. If you patch an orange peel area, how do you get the texture back on the flat patch you just did? Our painting company is called Breezy DH, Inc. We're DIYing where we can, and wall and ceiling paint is certainly doable. No painters fixing holes. :( We did decide to have our trim and doors professionally caulked, sanded, and sprayed as it would take DH many months to do that painstaking, detailed work with his schedule. I am the GC so it does fall to me to take care of this. I finally heard back from the flooring company. My rep will be stopping by in the morning to take a look at the walls. He did give me some slight bs about damage below the trim, but agreed that there shouldn't be damage above. Accidents happen, but I know they were moving very fast and didn't seem that careful when I watched them several times during the first two days. I will not have the floor installers do the repairs. Didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. :)

Well there is one thing I think is pretty unanimous - the doorway between the dining and living rooms will get moved over to the west about 20", allowing the space under the stairs to be better utilized either for storage or a little reading nook/desk spot. Got the toughest decision out of the way first :) I really don't want to mess with the plumbing stack that is behind the built-in.....so unless that's really the only way to make things work, there will be no passageway along that north living room wall. I had thought about moving the heat pump away from the laundry room window and over to the west, on the other side of the garage door, and then converting the laundry room window to a door and having that be our main entry on the back side of the house. I'm afraid it may look funny though to have two exterior doors right next to each other, and I don't want to lose the exterior access to the garage, so that door will have to stay put. I think the laundry room window will need to stay as it is and the dining room door should be the main entrance. We can redo the landscaping & put in a sidewalk that will direct traffic to that door from the driveway. One thing I'm not sure of is if I should do sliders or French doors? Is it weird to have a slider as the "front" door? And how do I handle privacy - the door faces the back yard, there is no house or anything back there that could see in, but I still want something to cover the door at night. Maybe built-in blinds would be best? I love the idea of moving the kitchen to the nook....it would be so nice to look out into the yard while working in the kitchen, but that would mean that we have to use the dining room as THE dining room. I don't think that will work if the dining room door is the entry and even if it weren't, that room is not really suited for a dining room table. It's too narrow and too much of a passthrough room. I tried it out briefly a year or so ago and it didn't work very well. bp's suggestion of closing off the current laundry/kitchen connection and moving the washer/dryer there looks good - we could open up a doorway to the right of the sink and shift the sink/stove/kitchen to the south. Opening up a doorway to the living room from the kitchen would let in light from the big picture window in the living room, so the kitchen wouldn't feel as dark. The rest of the laundry room space (north end) could be used as a mudroom and normal household traffic could go from the garage to the "dining" room and then on to the bedrooms or living room. The one thing I'm not sure about with that plan is where does my pantry go? I would like to have a decent pantry as we do a lot of gardening and canning in the summer and I don't have a basement or cellar to use for storage. Maybe it would have to go somewhere in the laundry area. Thanks again for the terrific suggestions and the kind comments about our little house. It's not perfect and definitely has its idiosyncrasies but it's also got a lot of character and charm - thanks for reminding me of that, I tend to take it for granted sometimes!