Franak Ostapowicz wrote:what are your favorite indoor sustainable natural plasters, or do you prefer wood paneling?
Right now I am renovating another house of ours and was taken back by the price of drywall on the scale we need it. I have a sawmill, plenty of forested acres, and the equipment to move wood anyway, so my plan is to use wood boards where I can, yet still have a nice house. For this home, a 1922 Four Square, it means being somewhat refined; so no rustic, all wood, boards and beams look.
To
thread the needle between appropriate architecture, cost, and sustainability; we are using wood in the lower half of the upstairs bedrooms. From the ceiling down to four feet, we will be using sheets of drywall, then wood below that (3 feet in this house) with chair rail molding separating the two distinct areas. The reason is simple, so we only have to cut the sheets of drywall to length, and not in width since it comes in 4 feet widths.
Using this drywall/wood combination in the upstairs bedroom I will save 25% on my drywall costs. In addition, sawing lumber is very cheap; a few gallons of fuel will net me a lot of coverage. That is in part to how easily a 23 hp engine makes lumber, but also from the fact that by making my own lumber, I will saw my boards at 1/2 inch for a thickness instead of the typical 1 inch in thickness. This nets me twice the usable lumber (and thus double wall coverage on a per foot basis).
To further stretch my budget, and to make life better for me, I use boards behind my kitchen cabinets where the wood will not show. This is not just because of costs, but because it makes it more difficult for rodents to chew through than drywall, but also because I can place a screw anywhere I need to in order to hold up my cabinets...no searching for studs or using toggle bolts! In a bathroom, I typically put boards or plywood behind the sheetrock EVERYWHERE so that down the road if I need to hang a mirror, put in a toilet paper holder, or even install grab bars for an elderly person living in the house.
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