Taping/mudding/painting? How messy?

[bunnymendelbaum]

We decided to hire out the remaining drywall/plaster work on our house. It includes general repairs, painting walls, ceiling & trim in 3 rooms and the bigger solution to our cracked & peeling hallway ceiling. (They can either skim it, or put up new 1/4" drywall I don't care.)
I have this on our construction timeline for February... When I will have a one month old. Now I'm thinking this might be dumb.

How much will the house have to be torn apart? Furniture moved? Will it get filthy?

I can't decide if we should do it now pre-baby or wait until February (DH & DD will be gone for a week and maybe baby & I could stay with someone?) After that I'll pay someone to deep clean the house in prep for listing for sale March 1?

I have a feeling this is going to be a cluster f either way. I'm going to try to get an estimate this week or next.

[wawa]

well...judging by my drywall guys it's a horrible filthy messy job.
Judging by the reactions to the pictures I posted of my floor afterward - it's not supposed to be.

the hallway will probably be a huge mess since they'll need to do something about the peeling parts.

As for furniture - you're talking pulling furniture away from walls leaving a reasonable work aisle, moving any rugs also in that area and dropclothing everything.

The taping/plastering itself shouldn't be too messy. it's the sanding that'll get you. That dust gets everywhere. If you can swing doing it when you can get out of the house that'd definitely be better. But if it's in a part of the house you can isolate then it probably wouldn't be too bad.

[bunnymendelbaum]

I'm leaning toward February when DH & dd are gone. Going to try to schedule them and then the cleaners right after. We will see how that goes right? Getting ppl to show up on a specific day doesn't seem to be possible!

I might see if they can come twice though. I'd LOVE to get the guest room done soon so OOT ppl visiting in January to meet new baby can sleep in there. Hmmmm.

[wawa]

Nov 15, 2012 8:19:05 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

I'm leaning toward February when DH & dd are gone. Going to try to schedule them and then the cleaners right after. We will see how that goes right? Getting ppl to show up on a specific day doesn't seem to be possible!

I might see if they can come twice though. I'd LOVE to get the guest room done soon so OOT ppl visiting in January to meet new baby can sleep in there. Hmmmm.

that sounds like a good plan if they're willing to split up the work. A guest room is easy to isolate for dust and such.

[SusanBAnthony]

I would do it all now. Is there a reason not to? When we had our basement done it was a mess, but since it was just the basement I didn't care. In the main part of the house, I wouldn't want to chance waiting until you list in case things get slowed down, the contractor is a no-show, etc.

[TBM]

I would do it now. I know that you are used to demo and chaos, but getting it over with pre baby just seems to make more sense to me.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Thanks!
I'm going to ask about the wet sanding and make sure that they drop cloth everything.

I guess the reason to wait is that we are super busy with the bathroom right now and if we do it in February, I can hire out the final pre-sale clean out right after.

DH & DD are also going to be gone Dec 6-10th, so maybe I can do it all then? Or at least have them do her ceiling when she will be gone.

I got a good recommendation from my contractor neighbor this morning at least!