Fun with math, part two

As I've probably mentioned before, I'm really not that great at math, especially when it involves fractions (or decimals, or addition, or division -- anything with numbers, really). Sadly, putting up drywall requires a great deal of math, particularly when each piece of gypsum needs to be cut to fit an uneven wall with holes for electrical outlets and whatnot.

That being said, we have learned a few things that make the math a little less onerous. A little.

One of the things that helps, and generally helps avoid having to recut TOO many pieces, is to base all of the measurements for a piece of drywall on one corner (or at least a specific side) of the wall on which it's going to hang. The amount of drywall we're already wasting is bad enough as it is; we really don't want to create any more than we have to:



So on Wednesday night, we had already put up a couple of pieces and cut out the big window, and figured we could do one more before calling it a night. The next piece in the queue, however, was something of a tricky one, being as it wasn't QUITE a full four feet wide, required a hole for an electrical outlet (of course), and had a big cutout in the top to leave room for the electrical panel.

Forging on, the War Department got in there with a tape measure and started singing out the measurements while I grabbed a marker and faithfully recorded everything on the nearest available surface - which happened to be a piece of rigid foam insulation:



I think you can tell from looking at it what we were up against. I had some concerns, but we grabbed a fresh piece of drywall and started scoring, cutting, snapping, and sawing away. Once in a while, as we shaped the piece to fit, I would surreptitiously grab a tape measure and check the measurements.

I didn't think it looked too good for our heroes.

But we pressed on, and got the length cut, then the width, then the little cutout, and finally formed the hole for the electrical outlet. By this time, however, I was so convinced that the piece was totally out of whack that I didn't even bother to score the lines for the outlet hole, but just hacked it out quick and dirty with the drywall saw. Finally, there was nothing left to do but drag the piece over to the corner and hoist it up into place.

Call me a monkey's jesus, but the damn thing fit like a glove. First time, no trimming:



So, yeah. Maybe we're getting better, or maybe my math sucks so much that I can't even correctly measure a piece that's actually going to fit just right.

Anyway, we took last night off from drywalling to address the hammer drill issue, but I think it's all coming along okay:



And yes, we had a hammer drill issue. More on that next time.