Don't Settle For Drywall In Your Cottage

Don’t settle for drywall in cottage country

The standard finishing for wall treatments in residential and most commercial buildings in North America is Drywall. It is seen everywhere; walls and ceilings, where you should see less is in your cottage.

A cottage is suppose to be the place where you get back to nature, where you go to relax and feel like you’re one with the world again and away from all the hustle and bustle of the modern world. Well there’s nothing more modern in this world then drywall, drywall is a constant reminder to someone like me of the modern world.

Drywall was what replaced lath and plaster walls, this wall finish is for your home not your cottage. Your cottage should be something that reminds you of the outdoors, of a bygone day where there was no electricity or gas to power or heat your home and you hacked your existence out of the wilderness around you. You survived because you willed it not because society demands it.

That means that the walls and ceilings of your cottage should be made from wood. They can be any kind of species of wood, whatever you want but they should be some sort of species of wood.

A good rule of thumb is that you should cover the walls of your cottage in the same wood that surrounds the outside of your cottage. If you are in the Muskoka’s you should try to install pine or birch but if you are up the Bruce Peninsula then you should look toward cedar or tamarack . Every cottage area has a different species of tree that lives and survives; finishing the inside of your cottage in it is like thanking nature for the gifts it has given you.

Finishing your cottage in wood is usually a little more expensive then drywall but it will also last longer than drywall and it is by far stronger against being punctured or broken. With wood finishing’s you never have to worry about repairing drywall cracks as natural wood will shrink and expand with the seasons on its own. The brittleness of drywall is a modern thing like all the junk that is created in this throw away society, wood is not, it is installed to survive the life of your home.

Most cottages are built smaller then a normal residential home so the cost for the wood inside over drywall should not cost that much more in your budget.

When planning that renovation or new cottage construction build then look towards wood finishing’s on the inside, make your cottage what it should be, a part of nature not one without it.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Do you want to build a craftsmen style home?

If you want your new custom built home to be a craftsmen style house then you better make sure that your builder employ’s the highest quality of carpenters. If they don’t then you will probably not be happy with the final product.

When you are interviewing general contractors some of the things that you should be looking for are as follows;

• The fit and finish of all the woodworking completed in the houses that the general contractor takes you too. This is one of the key things you should do when you interview a general contractor.

• Make sure that you see their work in person, not just in a fancy picture book or on the internet. When you see their work in person then there is no way to hide flaws or problem areas.

• When touring houses they have built that are a couple years old look to see how the workmanship of the woodwork has held up. It’s a subtle art to woodwork to make it look good and also to install it properly so that it lasts a long time.

General contractors do not employ all trades; electricians, plumbers, hvac, drywallers and painters are hired as sub-trades. Carpenters are what most general contractors employ. Employing carpenters can make building custom homes easier, it allows the general contractor to control the quality of the work and the overall fit and finish of the end product. Carpenters can also be used as on-site managers. Because a craftsmen style house has a lot of wood work in it, carpenters are onsite throughout the building process which allows them to oversee all the sub-trades that enter the work site. You would have to be building an extremely large house to need an on-site manager that solely managed the house. When I say large house, I mean a house that would be worth 5 million dollars or more.

Companies like Village Builders out of Creemore use their master carpenters not only to build their custom homes but also to be on-site managers controlling quality and craftsmen ship. Village Builders then use management to deal directly with the homeowners and to schedule all the sub-trades and order all the material. This insures that there is one person that is onsite for the construction of the entire home; it also insures that the little things never get overlooked when building your custom home.

Craftsmen style houses encompass a lot of natural products, mostly wood. They can have wood ceilings, wood floors, wood trim, wood mantles and even timber framing in the ceilings. This requires master carpenters that are comfortable working with all those different types of wood and the knowledge of installing them.

So remember if you are planning to build a craftsmen style house, it is important to find out the quality and workmanship of your general contractors carpenters, they are the ones that will make your house look like it should be in a magazine! If you are wondering what a well built craftsmen style house should look like check out our website at www.villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.