Patching and Plastering - RE: Sheetrock HELP!!!!!

Okay guys......... I ended up knocking out all of the plaster in the whole room :( Now I am down to the lath and have even scraped it all smooth so I can hang new drywall. I am really puzzled as to where to start. Everything I have read says ALWAYS do the ceiling first. That sounds easy enough but my problem is that this is an upstairs room with the slopes from the roof pitch. So are those suppose to be done first or the flat part of the ceiling :confused: Geeeeze what was suppose to be a simple paint job has turned out to be a nightmare!! :eek:
Thanks for all your help and the best wishes for my husband while he is deployed! That really means alot to us right now. Thanks again.

I've been thinking about the lath. I think you should take it off. Here's why. the lath are probably buckled and twisted and some bow out away from the wall. The studs are likely not perfectly straight or plumb. The plasterer took care or the straightening part years ago and maybe even plumbed it but not necessarily; but I digress. The reason for leaving the lath on is that the thickness of the lath plus the new drywall will be about the same as the lath and the old plaster. I think you should do it like this. Use some strings to establish straight lines across the wall after the lath is off. Use some of the lath or new lath or new strips of something the the same thickness as the lath and nail up and down along the studs. Shim as necessary to get straight walls. This will allow you still to have the same thickness of lath plus drywall but will eliminate the broken, buckled and twisted lath and leave you nice clean studs (with a little thickness added) to work to.

With anything but a vault you do indeed hang the ceiling first, but with a vault to deal with the best (and easiest) way is to start from the floor and work up. Use some scraps of 1/2" drywall and sit the bottom wall sheet on them and attach to wall. Now stack your top wall sheet on top of that and attach. Now you have a nice straight line, (hopefully :rolleyes: ) to work your vault off of. Start the first course off butted up to the top edge of the wall sheet and then just stack your courses until you get to the peak.

BTW, I would remove the lath, for mostly the same reasons Tightcoat mentioned and also , because alot of times it's not attached to the studs very well and the drywall absolutely must be attached to the studs, not the lath.

Hope that helps. Good luck! ;)

We just re-did our bedroom and bathroom and tore out all the old plaster AND lathe. I strongly recommend removing the lathe as well. It's easy to take out with a wrecking bar, break out one piece, then stick the bar in the hole, turn it so the hook is behind the lathe and pull (be sure to wear gloves and glasses). The hard part is removing all the nails, but after we ran a string, we were able to shim up our old walls to make everything MUCH straighter than it was before we started.

And awesomedell has the right idea on the best way to hang drywall with a sloped roof...we did the same in the upstairs room of our 1850s home...

Good luck!!!