Drywall help in addition to house.

[williamkwong]

Hi everyone. I have been lurking around in this forum ever since purchasing a home last year. I have a pretty big garage (for this area) and have been wanting to make it more personal. You guys have some AWESOME garages. Anyways, this is my first thread so I thought to add that little introduction.

So when I bought this house, the previous owners added a small laundry room. They seemed to have added 3 additional walls and a roof against the side of the house to create this room. So one of the walls in this laundry room is actually siding of the house. They put a very thin sheet of wood to cover up the siding.

I am in the process of tiling the floor and repainting the room. If possible I wanted to replace this thin piece of wood. Would I be able to simply add drywall and screw that onto the siding?

Thanks.

-will

 

[rasit]

Welcome to the site. Simply put, if you have something solid to attach to and it's dry, you can drywall it. Not sure how solid your "very thin sheet of wood" is. You might consider adding some 1"x3"'s screwed through the siding into the existing studs to create a solid framing for the sheetrock.

 

[Red05GT]

If it's wood siding install the drywall over the plywood that's there or as rasit said, put
up some 1x furring strips. If it's vinyl siding, I would remove everything down to the
wall sheathing and then install the drywall.

 

[Kevin54]

You can do it with no problems, but it would be best to take it off and if the room is built correctly, tear the siding off and get down to the studs. In doing that, you can run electric if need be. You can see where any existing electric is. It will only cost you a little time in tearing it off. And you can see any potential problems as in insulation and or electric. But that is just my opinion. I am the type that if it is in a house, make it a part of he house. You wouldn't want a bedroom or living room knowing that it has siding underneath a wall.

 

[williamkwong]

Thanks for the input.

The wall has wood siding. You guys have opened me up to a couple options. Initially I was going to remove the thin covering and install the drywall right over the siding into the studs. However, i was going to run into the problem with the outlets there. The outlet boxes would probably be too recessed into the wall seeing it will be siding AND drywall between the box and outlet cover. (Am I right? I have not done much home improvement before.)

I also can spend some time taking out the siding, which I would rather not do because of the additional demoing and insulation to toss out. But in the end, I would have done it right.

 

[csp]

However, i was going to run into the problem with the outlets there. The outlet boxes would probably be too recessed into the wall seeing it will be siding AND drywall between the box and outlet cover. (Am I right? I have not done much home improvement before.)

You can get box extensions at the big box home improvement stores.

Personally I'd strip it back to the studs.

 

[ket-tek]

I too would probably pull the siding off, to make sure there was no rot or mold behind it since it was once exposed to the weather.

You could also frame a false wall in front of the siding right up against it, and that would also allow to run electric and give a proper sheetrocking surface, that would be quick and easy with no demo work.

We do like pics also

 

[tcianci]

You can just remove the thin wood, cut a hole in the siding/sheathing anywhere you think you want to add an outlet. Make the hole a good 2 inches bigger than the box you want to install and then drywall the siding, and install old work boxes in the new drywall. All your depth issues go away if you do it like this, Don't rip up the siding or sheathing, it's pointless and depending on how the bump out was added, there are most likely no inside corner "nailers" for the new drywall that you want to add. What you're probably looking at in terms of how the addition was constructed is that the walls adjacent to the one in question were probably attached to the existing sheathing or even right on top of the existing siding. In any event, going back to the studs is a total waste of time because the existing sheathing runs under the new adjacent walls. Use your head, no one is more well able to analyze the current condition than you because we're not there.
There's no "one size fits all" solution to a re model project and a lot of the posts here indicate that some folks dont have a clue as to how buildings are constructed in the first place and they aren't going to be at your house when you're up to your eyeballs in stuff that never needed to be touched in the first place.