I’m wrapping up the framing for a basement “rec” room which is about 500 sq. feet and am gathering a few estimates for drywall. These are coming in at about $3,500 for DW ceiling (rough/swirl finish) and walls (smooth). DW contractors estimate about 60 4×8 sheets of 1/2″ blue board will be required.
So far, it looks to be about $60/sheet. Is this a reasonable estimate for Boston area?
Replies
Is this "drywall" or "veneer coat plaster"?
Things were going along nicely until you mentioned blueboard.
its hard to say what someone else charges in another city for work, you know. Like me asking you "how much does it cost to build a house?"
And whats a sheet. 4x8 sheet, 12, 16? Is there a lot of cutting? Soffit work, corner beads, boxed windows or cased openings, how high is the ceiling (stretchrock gets pricey) . . . metal or vinyl bead, wood or metal studs, who framed it a pro or a trunk slammer . . . ok you get the idea
For irony, I hired someone to do a drywall job just so I'd be free enough to go do a different one, half the size and a thousand bucks more. It's not the $/sf that matters. Its the end result.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
around here,85 cents to a 1.50 a ft,will get the materials,labor to hang,and finish. i didn't know we had it so good!my house came in at 1.05 a ft for smooth finish walls and 10' clgs. smooth finish larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
"a few estimates" ...
"coming in at" ...
sounds like everyone's in agreement?
Jeff
Thanks for everyone's input. All the estimates so far are in the same range of $3,500. I guess costs have skyrocketed over the past 4 or 5 years so I'm getting sticker shock. For example, we had a much larger room over the garage with cathedral ceilings (many, many angles). This also included drywall and skim coat the two car garage itself (because it's code in MA). All this for the same price ($3,500).
Now, it's costing the same for a much, much smaller area. Wow! That's inflation!
A large room is far easier to work than a basement. but there is labour cost inflation too.For instance, I built a house in about '98 or '99 and since we were using the garage for a shop space while the sheet roock was happening, we just had them hang and tape the type x on the wall adjacent to the living space, with plans for them to come back to do the rest in a couple weeks. The price for the final was to be $2000On a thursday, we emptied the garage of tools and supplies and told the owners that the SR guys would do the garage staarting on monday. When I showed up early monday AM, it was packed to the cieling with boxes of crap. The owners had decided that they could saved another $500/month renbt at the storage place, by renting the U-haul and moving it in there. Aaaraugh!So I was up there last week with the same SR guy so he could give a price to finally finish it. $3000. Same work, Same crew, Same place. Fifty percent more. ( but there is probably an added agravation factor built into this price after what ahppened last time around when I called him on cell phone to put the job off "for a few more weeks" since there was no way to get in.
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Blue board sounds like plaster veneer. I guess that wouldn't surprise me on the east coast. $3500 for 1920 square feet comes out to $1.82 per foot, hung and finished. My experience is that Diamond finish is 30-40% more than sheetrock finishing.
If you're getting competitive bids and everyone's bidding on the same specs, go with the person who has the best references and can schedule when you want them.