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I hung drywall horizontally in my bedroom and hired a company to mud and tape it so that I could prime and paint. As you know, drywall sheets are recessed along the edges in order to hold drywall compound. Well, they did not mud along the bottoms of any of the walls where the drywall sheets recess. Shouldn't they have even so much as applied a sloppy layer of mud to fill the recess so that my base moulding would have something flat to be attached to? Otherwise, when I go to put on the base moulding, it's going to dip inward.

Here's a picture of a corner in my room where the bottoms are entirely unfinished. It seems like the bevelled edges along the bottoms of these sheets should have been filled in to provide a flat, vertically level surface to hold moulding.

enter image description here

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    How much space was left between the bottom of the drywall and the floor?
    – The Evil Greebo
    Jan 10, 2013 at 20:49
  • They mudded the vertical seams all the way to the bottom, right? You're talking about a horizontal length of mud along the bottom?
    – Steven
    Jan 10, 2013 at 20:51
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    This is common practice. You mud drywall - drywall seams. But not drywall-floor. Seeing as YOU hung the drywall, if the gap is too large, it's your fault. However, seeing as it's going to be covered, you could plug some too-large gaps with thin strips of scrap.
    – Chris Cudmore
    Jan 10, 2013 at 21:11
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    This is also a good space to run Ethernet if you forgot to do that while the walls were open.
    – Jay Bazuzi
    Jan 16, 2013 at 22:17
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    That's a really good idea for speaker wire. While that 1/4" gap at the bottom will be filled with acoustical caulk, there may be room at the widest part of the bevel for speaker wire, although I think it will be too narrow for ethernet.
    – oscilatingcretin
    Jan 17, 2013 at 11:39

2 Answers 2

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Typically, drywall sheets hung horizontally are hung with the upper full sheet first against the ceiling, cut bottom sheet last. This is so you will have an indent at the top to tape and mud. Unless your wall is exactly 8 feet tall, the cut of the bottom sheet is at the floor, thus no indent. Even if you have an indent at the very bottom against the floor, it is only about 2 inches wide. Common baseboard is 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches wide and will bridge this indent and is nailed mid and high. We have never put mud on the very bottom of a sheet, even it the indent is there. I suppose if your baseboard is very narrow, you may have to ask the mudders to fill that area, but that is very uncommon and would be a special request.

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  • As a test, put your piece of molding along the unfinished bottom. As Shirlock says, typically the bottom is the cut end, even if it isn't cut, I don't think you will notice the indent. I've never mudded the bottom, indent or not.
    – Jon Raynor
    Jan 11, 2013 at 2:39
  • As a professional, upon encountering non-ordinary surface such as the one in question, whether before taking a job, or during working on it, would you not inquiry the customer if there is anything special that needs to be done?
    – theUg
    Jan 17, 2013 at 6:03
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When tapers have finished horizontally hung sheetrock that I installed, they have never mudded the bottom even when it was not cut at the bottom. The indent is not a big problem. I have been fortunate enough to find a trim installer who did a couple houses for me who coped his cuts when installing base trim. It would not have mattered how far off the angle was or how big the indent was, he was good enough to trim it without any problems or gaps.

Even if you are not a great trimmer like myself we have good enough tools today that after a little playing around with angles and back-cutting you can do an appreciable job. If your guests don't like the joinery, send them home or find a better trimmer; there are bigger things to worry about.

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  • Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. When you use all capital letters, it comes across as if you were yelling. I've edited this post to fix this.
    – Daniel Griscom
    Jan 6, 2018 at 3:41

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