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INTERIOR IMPROVEMENTS
FLOORS: Getting a Room Ready for a New Wood Floor
Laying a new wood floor is often easier and less time-consuming than laying many of the so-called quick and easy floor coverings of synthetic sheet or tile. Wood, unlike most resilient materials, does not require a smooth, carefully prepared surface. In most cases, you use the existing floor or a plywood subfloor covered with strips of asphalt-saturated building paper. A new subfloor is probably unnecessary if you have old wood or resilient flooring in reasonably good shape. In this case, drive down raised nails, renail loose boards and replace badly warped ones, and cement down loose tiles or torn sheeting.
If you suspect that the old floor may conceal damage or decay, check underneath it. Remove damaged flooring and subflooring and patch the hole with plywood equal to the thickness of the old finished floor. If the damage is extensive, remove the entire floor, check for and repair any structural damage; then lay a new plywood subfloor. Before trying to floor over concrete, check for excess dampness by laying a 16-inch square of heavy plastic over the slab and sealing the edges with tape. If drops of water have condensed on the plastic after several days, the concrete is a poor choice for a finished wood floor.
If the concrete is suitable, provide a moisture barrier for the new floor by covering the concrete slab with polyethylene film sandwiched between two layers of 1-by-2 sleepers. Then lay a plywood subfloor on the sleepers.
A ceramic-tile floor makes an unstable base for a new wood floor. Nailing tongue-and-groove flooring on top of ceramic tiles will loosen and crack the tiles -- even if they are covered with plywood. Remove old tiles and install a new subfloor before you lay the strip flooring.
To install a new subfloor or replace a damaged old one, use C-D grade plywood at least 5/8 inch thick. Check the joists underneath before laying subflooring, and if they are more than 16 inches apart, or are made of lumber smaller than 2-by-8, reinforce them, or install new joists in the spaces between the old ones. In rooms such as attics, where small joists may cover long spans, it may be necessary to increase the thickness of the plywood subfloor to 3/4 inch.
Always lay plywood subflooring with the outer grain perpendicular to the joists, and stagger the sheets so that the joints do not align. Where two sheets meet at a joist, trim them so that there is a bearing surface for both, and leave 1/8-inch spaces at the sides and 1/16-inch spaces at the ends to allow room for expansion of the subfloor.
Floating a Floor to Reduce Noise
Uncarpeted wood floors upstairs are noisy. The best way to muffle the sounds of footsteps is to lay carpeting, but for excessively noisy areas, you can adapt the "floating floor" techniques that were developed to soundproof apartment buildings.
To construct a floating floor, staple 1/2-inch insulation board, available from lumberyards in 4-by-8 sheets, to the existing floor or subfloor. Mark the position of the joists on each sheet and do not staple into any joists. Glue 1-by-3 furring strips to the board with subfloor construction adhesive, placing the strips parallel to one another between joists. Then fasten a 1/2-inch plywood subfloor to the furring strips and install the finish flooring. You can further muffle airborne noise by laying insulating batts between the open floor joists underneath the subfloor.
Installing a Wood Floor Board by Board
A floor of oak strip boards -- or of the less common hardwoods, such as maple, pecan, hickory and ash, that can be found at specialty lumberyards -- is durable and elegant in appearance, yet remarkably simple to install. And with the aid of a power nailer, available at tool-rental agencies, the job goes fast.
Flooring boards that are of conventional hardwood are 3/4 inch thick and 2 to 4 inches wide. The boards are milled with interlocking tongues and grooves on their sides and ends, and can be blind-nailed through their tongues, a technique that makes the joints between boards uniform and hides the nailheads. Broader hardwood planks, which may be as wide as 8 inches, must be screwed into the subfloor as well as blind-nailed to keep them from buckling.
Before they are nailed in place, floorboards are extremely susceptible to warping and swelling caused by moisture. Bring your home to its normal humidity before the wood is delivered: In winter, heat the room adequately, and in summer keep the air conditioner running. Insist that hardwood flooring be delivered on a dry day, at least three days before you plan to lay your floor. Untie the bundles and stack the boards in loose piles to let them adjust to the humidity and temperature of the room.
When laying the floor, you will have to nail the first few boards by hand before you will have room to use the power nailer for the rest of the floor. The nailer, which consists of a spring-operated mechanism that drives barbed flooring cleats, is triggered by the blows from a rubber-headed mallet. The cleats feed into the nailer like bullets from the clip in an automatic rifle: Each blow of the mallet drives home a cleat and simultaneously reloads and cocks the machine. To get the knack of working with the nailer before you use it, practice on a scrap of flooring set atop some spare plywood.
How to Buy Hardwood Flooring
Hardwood flooring -- no matter what the wood -- is graded according to the standards that are set by the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association. The boards are rated in order of decreasing quality as "clear," "select," "No. 1 common" or "No. 2 common," depending on color, grain and imperfections such as knots and streaks.
All strip flooring is sold in random lengths. Individual boards range from 9 to 102 inches long, but the boards are always sold according to a "flooring board foot" formula, based on the premilled size of the boards. To determine the amount of flooring you will need, calculate the area of your room in square feet. If you are buying 3/4-by-2 1/4-inch boards, the most common size, increase the area measurement by 38.3 percent to convert to flooring board feet and to account for wastage. For example, a 16-by-20-foot room totals 320 square feet. Multiplying 320 by 1.383 gives 443 flooring board feet. For boards of other dimensions, ask your flooring distributor for the proper conversion factor.
Eye-Catching Patterns in Sheet and Tile
For centuries, the most common flooring materials in North America were wood planks, rough stones or dirt. Synthetics and modern industry changed all that. In 1863 a Briton named Frederick Walton invented a new kind of flooring -- linoleum, made by mixing linseed oil, ground-up cork and natural resins. It was inexpensive, impervious to most spills and colorfully decorated with built-in patterns, and its popularity inspired the development of other manmade resilient flooring materials.
As a result, when installing a new floor today, you can select the material best suited to the demands of a particular room. Durability and economy of upkeep can govern the choice for a workroom while appearance and comfort determine what will go underfoot in a living room or den. Although wood is still the most versatile material, synthetic floorings are the most popular for kitchens and playrooms. These floorings are called resilient because they cushion the impact of feet or dropped objects. They come either as tiles that can be installed in a variety of designs, or in rolled sheets that can be cut to fit irregularly shaped rooms.
Resilient tiles, generally 9 or 12 inches square, lend themselves to imaginative design and are available in a variety of materials. Wood tile, often called parquet, is installed in much the same way as resilient tile and also can provide variations in pattern. Choose tiles according to the amount of traffic they will bear as well as the floor design you have in mind.
You can lay a tile floor all in one color, of course, but once you know how to design a floor you can use tiles to hide visual defects -- stripes running across the width make a narrow room look broader, for example -- or to define areas of the room or to decorate your floor with any design that strikes your fancy.
Begin by measuring your room and calculating the number of 9- or 12-inch tiles you will need; then draw the floor on graph paper and work out the design you want by filling squares representing tiles of different colors.
Resilient tile can be laid on almost any surface except strip flooring, which shifts too much to provide a firm base. Cover a strip floor with a 1/2-inch hardboard or plywood underlayment. You can lay a new resilient tile floor over an old one if you remove wax and other finishes and repair indentations, holes or loose tiles.
If you want to lay tile on concrete, check the slab for moisture, as the combination of dampness and alkali deposits in the concrete will make the tile buckle. If there is moisture on the floor, do not lay resilient tile on the concrete; install a moisture-resistant underlayment first. If the concrete passes the moisture test, remove paint and stain, repair any cracks or holes, flatten bumps with a rented electric concrete-grinder, and fill in any depressions with a floor-patching compound, available at hardware stores. Then, using a roller or brush, coat the slab with a clear waterproofing solution, also available at hardware stores.
After you have made your design and prepared your floor, set up guidelines by the method shown opposite, center. Tiles are laid either on the square, with their edges parallel to the walls, or on the diagonal, with their edges at a 45° angle to the walls; the guidelines you make will ensure that they are correctly aligned in either direction. Then test your plot by making a dry run of tiles so that you can adjust your borders and avoid the tedious business of cutting tiny pieces of tile to fit along a wall. If you are trying a complex design you may want to do a dry run over the entire floor.
Following the dry run, laying the floor is largely a matter of setting tiles in adhesive -- your floor dealer can tell you which to use. Most resilient tiles require solvent-based adhesives. Wood tiles, which are laid by a similar process, need a more viscous mastic, either solvent based or latex based. Caution: Solvent-based adhesives are flammable; keep the room well ventilated and extinguish any flame before starting. The adhesives work best when the room is warmer than 70°.
Although ceramic- and quarry-tile floors are best laid in mortar, they can be set in water-resistant organic adhesive. The tiles often have lugs on their edges, creating gaps that are filled with grout.
Two Patterns for Parquetry
Parquet -- wood tile -- comes in a variety of sizes, shapes and finishes with which you can lay a handsome floor in patterns such as the two traditional ones shown at right, "Haddon Hall" and "Herringbone." Design and installation techniques are much like those for resilient tile floors, but there are a few exceptions. When you plot your design on graph paper, you may have to use more than one square of the graph to represent each tile, depending on the shape of tile you are using. And if you are using square tiles, indicate on the plot the direction of the grain in each tile. In elongated tiles and strips, the grain runs lengthwise.
While resilient tile floors have a border of trimmed tile on four sides, wood floors should have a border of whole tiles on the sides of the room where there are doorways, because the glue under a full-sized wood tile provides a stronger bond in heavily trafficked areas. Guidelines are set up just as they are for resilient tile, but when you make a dry run, you may need to adjust the lines to get a full-tile border on a door side.
Wood tiles absorb moisture, so before you lay them let them rest loosely around the room for 72 hours so that they will adjust to the humidity. Also, leave a 1/2-inch space between the border tiles and the walls to allow for the tiles' expansion. You may insert a thin strip of 1/2-inch cork, available at lumberyards, in the space.
Spread the proper mastic for wood tiles 1/8 inch thick and allow to set for two hours, until it is tacky. Then lay the tiles, paying special attention to the grain patterns marked on your plot and to locking tongues and grooves tightly.
Embedding Stone and Ceramic Tiles in Mortar
For many floors, the merits of hard mineral materials may well outweigh the desirability of resilience provided by wood or vinyl. Vestibules, halls and hearths can benefit from the beauty and durability of tiles of ceramic or stone; ceramic tile for bathrooms is discussed in Chapter 2. While hard tiles are best laid in a thin bed of mortar over a concrete subfloor, as described on these pages, today's adhesives make it possible to lay them on underlayment of 5/8-inch exterior-grade plywood, using the methods for laying resilient tiles.
The hard surfacing materials come in a dazzling variety. Ceramic-tile retailers offer choices that range from unglazed earth-colored pavers 6 inches square and 1/4 inch thick, and 8-inch square quarry tiles 1/2 inch thick, to colorful glazed and patterned creations up to a foot square. Tiles with abrasive grain fired into the glaze reduce slipperiness.
Slate and various kinds of sandstone, limestone and quartzite, all available in tile-shaped rectangles of uniform thickness, also make good-looking, impermeable floors and can be laid like ceramic. But for millennia the most desirable of all stones has probably been lustrous, gemlike marble. Though marble tiles come in various dimensions, a common and practical size is 1 foot square -- 1/2 inch thick if American, 1 centimeter (2/5 inch) thick if imported from Europe. Marble honed to a soft gloss is best for floors; highly polished surfaces are slippery and easily scratched. Despite its density, marble absorbs liquid, but transparent silicone sealer will protect it.
Remove the old tile, if any. The original surface -- such as the bare concrete subfloor shown below -- must be level to within 1/8 inch. By rolling a straight piece of pipe in various directions, find high and low spots. Level high spots with a rub brick or a rented concrete grinder, and fill low spots with mortar.
If your tiles have a directional pattern, such as the grain of marble, arrange a number of them to determine whether to set them with the grain running one way, or in a checkerboard-parquet style or at random. Lay out the tiles, using the method shown on page 28, but in place of chalk lines stretch mason's string tautly between nails driven into the wall plates 3/4 inch from the floor.
The technique given here uses a thin-set mortar, which can be made by mixing three cups of portland cement and three cups of fine masonry sand into two cups of latex tile-setting liquid (a bond-strengthening suspension of latex in water, sold by cement dealers). A batch will cover 6 square feet. It is applied with a rectangular "box-notch" trowel. Your dealer can recommend the correct notch size for the tile you select.
For most vestibules and halls, the job is finished with wood baseboards and molding -- the ones you removed for the renovation, or new ones. For a formal look, make bases of the same material as the floor. Ceramic tilemakers can supply such trim. For stone floor base and trim, ask your dealer to saw 12-by-12 tiles into 4-by-12 strips. Smooth and bevel or round the rough edges: Wearing eye protection or other necessary personal safety gear, use silicon-carbide sanding disks in an electric drill, with grits 80, 150 and 320 in succession. Secure the trim to the wall with water-resistant organic adhesive.
Estimating and Installing Wall-to-Wall Carpet
Two principal types of carpet are glue-down (also called cushion-back) and stretch-in carpets. A glue-down carpet typically has a cushion layer of foam rubber, jute or action backing and is secured directly to the subfloor with latex adhesive. An increasingly popular version of glue-down carpet is called double-stick carpet -- which involves gluing the cushion to the floor, then the carpet to the cushion. Some carpets, called unitary back, have no backing at all, and require higher-grade adhesive that must be allowed to "breathe" in order to set.
A stretch-in carpet has a separate undercushion stapled to the subfloor onto which it is placed. It is stretched and hooked onto tackless strips nailed to the edges of the subfloor or stairs -- a procedure that is often best left to professionals.
While both types of carpets are still equally common, the glue-down carpet is often favored over the stretch-in carpet by the do-it-yourselfer because few special tools are required to repair or replace it. In addition, glue-down carpet is usually less expensive than carpet installed over separate padding.
Most carpets are tufted: That is, their pile -- whether made of wool or any of several synthetics -- is machine-stitched into a backing that is made beforehand. They may be made with loop pile or cut pile, a distinction that is important to the techniques used when cutting carpet to fit your room. Sculptured carpets are made with both loop and cut pile.
When newly manufactured carpet is rolled up as it comes off the machine, the pile fibers are pressed down in the same direction, never to return to their original position. This "pile direction" affects appearance and installation technique.
You can tell pile direction by stroking it: Stroking against the pile direction will raise the nap. When you "look into" the pile, with the fibers leaning toward you, a carpet takes on its deepest hue. When you "look over" the pile, the carpet appears flatter and lighter in color. If possible, carpet should be installed with the pile leaning toward the main entrance to the room, presenting its fullest, richest appearance. To help hide the seam where two pieces of carpet are joined, the pile of at least one side should lean over the seam. In a doorway connecting two rooms, the pile from both sides may lean over the seam, but within a room the pile of every section of carpet must lean the same way or the pieces will show up as different hues.
Pile direction is one of several factors that must be taken into account when you are planning the layout of a carpet in a room and calculating how much to buy. Some others to remember are:
* Unless you have some carpet installation experience, you may be wise to begin in a small room requiring carpet with no seams.
* Run the longest seam in the room toward the major light source -- usually the largest window. A seam running parallel to light rays is much less apparent than one running across them.
* Keep seams away from high traffic areas, such as between doors of a room. The foot traffic thus directed along the seam length may loosen it.
* A tool called a carpet tractor is useful when making seams. Available from some carpet equipment suppliers, it pulls the two edges together for a tight seam.
* The best way to determine how much carpet you will need is to make a scale drawing of the area to be carpeted on graph paper. Choose a scale that will keep the drawing a convenient size; equating each square of the graph paper to a square foot usually works well.
* Make separate measurements of the entire length of each wall and then the shorter distances between its various features, such as doorjambs. Double-check for error by making sure the sum of the parts is equal to the whole. Compare diagonal measurements and the distances between walls to see if the walls are skewed or bowed. Plot the walls, doors and windows on the graph paper.
* Include the areas where the carpet will extend into doorways or bays as part of the room's overall dimensions; then add 3 inches to the length and the width of the floor for error. You may also have to add 1/2 inch for trimming each factory-cut edge; ask the carpet dealer for the manufacturer's recommendations.
Now, bearing in mind the rules about pile direction and the location of seams, figure out how many running yards of carpet 12 feet wide you need to cover the room, keeping the seams and the amount of wasted carpet to a minimum. To do this, experiment with graph paper cut to represent a length of carpet 12 feet wide.
If the carpet is patterned, you must take into account the repeat -- the distance from the point where a pattern begins to where it begins again -- in order to be sure of matching the pattern along a seam. If your scheme involves matching the pattern only lengthwise across two original edges of the carpet, simply allow for a full extra repeat on one of the lengths, and you will be able to adjust it to match. Take your scale drawing to your carpet dealer to have your estimates checked. If the carpet will meet an adjoining surface other than carpet, buy the length of binder bar needed; install it as described on page 151.
Before starting, nail uneven boards, remove grills from heating vents and sweep the floor. You may wish to remove shoe moldings, then put them back or repaint the baseboards before laying the carpet. The floor must be dry. A remedy for occasional moisture in a concrete floor is a layer of concrete sealer. However, if water rising from the ground leaves the floor permanently damp, it is best to forgo carpeting entirely, as the moisture will rot the cushion-back. Test for water seepage with a sheet of plastic taped to the floor, as described on page 18.
Rough-Cutting and Seaming
Once you have carefully planned the carpeting of a room, as described on page 33, unroll your carpet. Before cutting it, check for any defects and make sure that it is the size you ordered. Unroll the carpet in an empty room, basement, driveway or yard -- over newspaper if necessary -- and give it time to flatten.
Cut-pile carpet should be cut from the back. Loop-pile should be cut from the front to be sure the cut carpet does not remain joined by loops across the cut. When you lay out the pieces in the area to be carpeted, place them so that the pile leans in the same direction. Position the carpet by kicking it, or by flapping smaller pieces as if shaking a tablecloth, until the excess extends up all walls equally. Make relief cuts at corners, using a utility knife. Seams across the width of the carpet require special cutting with a row-running cutter.
Glue-Down: Easy to Install
Glue-down carpet is the easiest type to install. It requires no stretching, no specialized tools and no tackless strips. It is simply cemented down -- or, in some cases, stuck to the floor with double-faced tape. Also, glue-down carpet is usually less expensive than carpet installed over separate padding.
Although it goes down easily, once cemented glue-down is impossible to remove intact -- the cushion-backing rips off the face of the carpet as it is pulled up. The carpet cannot be used again and the backing and adhesive must be scraped off the floor; unless recarpeted, the floor will have to be refinished. And the foam backing of some cheap glue-down carpets may decompose in a few years; heavier backing generally lasts longer. Although weight is not the only determinant of carpet life, 26 ounces per square yard is the recommended minimum for a typical room, and 28 ounces for public areas such as stairs or hallways.
For cementing most glue-down carpets, use a multipurpose latex adhesive, available at hardware stores. Caution: When shopping for glue-down carpet, be sure to ask about backing material. Special adhesive is required for carpets with vinyl backing or those used below ground level. Often the backing material is difficult to identify -- even for the carpet dealer. If unsure of the material, contact the manufacturer.
Before laying the carpet, it should be preconditioned to room temperature -- at least 65° -- for 72 hours. Remove all dust, wax and paint from the floor, patch cracks and secure loose tiles or floorboards. The floor must be dry; a permanently damp floor is best left uncarpeted. While installing the carpet, and for 72 hours thereafter, make sure the room is well ventilated.
Many floors are so large that carpet cannot be laid without a seam. In such cases, begin to cement under the seam area. If the room needs only one piece, lay the carpet out, fold it in half with the triangular folds described in Step 4 and proceed with installation according to that and subsequent steps.
Easier Yet -- Taped Cushion-Back
Short of just letting the carpet lie loose on the floor, no installation could be easier than sticking down cushion-back carpeting with double-faced tape. Unfortunately, the carpet is likely to develop wrinkles between the strips of tape, and is likely to come unstuck altogether if it gets much wear. In addition, the floor surface will be ruined by the tape. It does, however, provide a simple, quick and cheap way to carpet an area where permanence is unimportant and where the floor will always be covered.
In a lightly traveled room, you need to apply tape only around the perimeter, flush with the walls, with a double strip of tape in front of any doorways. In a busier room, lay tape not only around the perimeter, but also diagonally 1 foot apart across the floor.
Stick down the tape, folding under a corner of each strip to provide a tab for removing the paper covering the face of the tape. Position the rough-cut carpet on the floor and fold back one side in the triangular manner described in Step 4 above. Peel the protective cover from the strips of tape and roll the carpet onto the taped area. Then press the carpet onto the tape with your fingers. Finish the job by trimming the carpet along the walls.
Truing Up Hills and Valleys for Resurfacing Walls
The key to a smooth wall or ceiling is a flat, sound substructure for the surface material. While some walls are sound enough to be resurfaced directly, others need extensive preparation to compensate for surface damage or crooked framing members. You may have to make a grid of thin wood furring strips to serve as a flat base. You may even have to build a false wall in front of the old one.
To assess the condition of an uneven wall or ceiling, you will need a carpenter's level and a long straight-edged board. First hold the level against the wall at several places to check it for plumb, or against the ceiling to check that it is level. Then slide the board across the wall or ceiling as you look for gaps between board and surface. If neither check discloses major flaws, you can probably install the new surface over the old with only minor preparations. If you plan to use adhesive, make sure the old surface is clean and tight; if the new surface will be fastened to the old framing, mark the positions of the wall studs or ceiling joists.
On surfaces where only small areas are damaged or out of true, you can use plywood or wallboard patches to repair the damage, shimming the patches to bring them flush with the surrounding surface. When the surface is badly damaged, however, or very uneven, you will have to build out the entire wall or ceiling with a grid of furring strips, shimming them as necessary to produce an even base. For the shims, use cedar shingles, making the required thickness by sliding two shingles together with their thin ends in opposite directions.
Sometimes, if the existing surface is basically true, you can check by eye alone to see if the shimmed furring strips are true. But you may need to rule off the wall or ceiling with reference lines and strings and take careful measurements to level the grid. On the sound sections of wall or ceiling around your working area, use erasable pencil or chalk.
In laying out a furring grid, you will have to deal with interruptions in the surface. Remove moldings and trim, and adjust the depth of door and window jambs to suit the new wall thickness. You will have to reposition some electrical outlet boxes -- or adjust their depth with box extensions, an easier task.
The pattern for the furring grid may require some preliminary thought. Although furring strips usually run horizontally, some materials, plywood paneling for example, require vertical supports as well, and you must plan the layout of the panels in advance, so that the vertical supports will match the panel edges.
Furring out from a masonry wall presents other problems. Many experienced do-it-yourselfers prefer the use of mastic furring anchors: At points aligned with furring strip locations, dab on mastic and press the anchors into it. When the anchors have set, drive the furring strips over them to clinch the nails. However, on any masonry wall below ground level, you must put a moisture barrier of vinyl sheeting -- after installing the anchors and before attaching the furring strips. A false wall may also be needed for the outlet boxes or switches for a new electric circuit.
Sometimes built-ins or plumbing fixtures make it impossible to fur out a wall or build a false one. Sometimes, too, a surface will be too badly damaged to serve as the base for a new one -- plaster may be too loose or wallboard too crumbly. In such cases, remove the existing wall surface and start from scratch, laying the resurfacing material directly against the framing studs. This is not as drastic as it sounds. Wallboard can generally be pulled off, or plaster broken, wearing safety goggles and using a hammer, after which the lath can be pried out with a utility bar. Before installing the new surfacing material, sink any protruding nails.
Covering Walls with Wood Veneer Panels
Nothing brings the warmth and elegance of wood to a room as quickly and effectively as veneer paneling for the walls. Available in hundreds of styles, wood-veneer panels are far less costly than are solid-wood boards and even easier to install than gypsum wallboard. Vertical joints can be disguised by an incised pattern on the panels, and other edges hidden by special moldings. The panels are attached to a framework of studs or furring strips just as wallboard is or, even better, to wallboard itself.
Yet, for all its advantages, paneling also has several disadvantages that have limited its use to certain rooms, such as recreation rooms and dens. It is more expensive than wallboard and, because of its construction, it is more flammable and more vulnerable to damage.
Typically, veneer paneling is a backing of plywood or particleboard veneered in one of several ways -- with a thin layer of fine wood, with a thin sheet of less desirable wood, or with a simulated wood grain printed on paper or vinyl. The panels come in sheets 5/32, 3/16 or 1/4 inch thick, and this thinness, along with the materials used, makes them the least fire-resistant of all common wall surfaces. National fire-testing laboratories give most veneer panels the same poor flame-spread rating, Class C or its equivalent, FS-200 -- ratings you should find stamped on each panel back.
Fire-prevention experts warn against putting large expanses of veneer paneling directly over wall studs or furring strips, particularly in such fire-prone areas as halls, stairways, kitchens and utility rooms. Instead, they recommend that you either apply panels directly to an existing wall of gypsum or plaster, or cover any stud wall or furring framework with 1/2-inch gypsum board. When you apply the panels, avoid placing wallboard joints and panel joints along th