Do-it-yourself drywall slopes: three ways

There are two technologies for decorating door slopes: plastering and decorating with solid finishing materials such as laminated MDF, plastic, drywall, etc. Leveling the door slope with plaster is the most reliable way from the point of view of safety: there are no cracks and gaps left, it will be very difficult to knock out the doors. Therefore, slopes are usually plastered near the entrance doors. But, as always, there are drawbacks: this work takes quite a lot of time, and it is difficult to achieve good results without skills. It’s easier to wrap something. You do not need to be a visionary to suggest that most often they make slopes from drywall with their own hands. It is clear why: the material is inexpensive, the technologies are known, it is easy to work with it, the result is good.

For the design of slopes indoors, ordinary drywall is used. If there is a need to make a slope outside or in a damp room, you need to take a moisture resistant one. The thickness of the sheets is normal, such as is used for walls – 12,5 mm.

You will also need a good paper cutter for work, you may need perforated paint corners and polyurethane foam. Putty will definitely be needed: to close up the cracks and bring everything back to normal.

Preparation for finishing

Before starting work on finishing the door slopes, all communications are laid that must pass through the doors. For example, if the doorway of the front door is being designed, it can be a bell wire, lighting above the door, etc. If slopes of interior doors are made, it can be a telephone cable or a twisted pair cable for connecting the Internet.

Having passed the necessary communications into the gap between the door frame, fixing them, the gaps are sealed with mounting foam. Foams cause no more than 1/3 of the volume of cracks: it expands greatly and can even bend a wooden door frame. Therefore, if the box is wooden, for a while while the reaction takes place, it is recommended to install spacers that guarantee an unchanged geometry.

The time required for the foam to harden depends on the temperature and humidity of the air, but on average it is 8-12 hours (for some types it may take a day). Excess hardened foam is cut off with a knife, plaster that does not hold well is removed, dust and dirt are swept away. You can start work on finishing the doorways.

How to make slopes from drywall

When installing drywall slopes, it is important to correctly and accurately measure the necessary elements. To do this, measure the distance from the door jamb to the corner in several places, measure the height of the required parts. Measurements are taken for each side separately: walls rarely have perfect geometry.

All dimensions are applied to a sheet of drywall, connected with lines. Once again, everything is measured and, if everything is correct, cut out.

We cut drywall

Cutting drywall is easy: you need a good paper knife, a long ruler (a meter or so) and a block of wood. A ruler is applied to the drawn line, a paper knife is drawn along it, cutting a sheet of cardboard and trying to cut the plaster at least a little. A bar is placed under the place where the incision was made and lightly tapped along the sheet along the incision. Gypsum breaks at the same time, and almost perfectly exactly along the cut line. All that remains is to cut the bottom sheet of cardboard.

The video shows how to cut drywall without a saw.

https://youtu.be/Pxt3QGuz1f8

In this way it is convenient to cut drywall in a straight line. Where curved lines are needed, a hacksaw is used – it has a small tooth and almost does not tear cardboard. They also use a jigsaw, but there is a lot of dust. You can also cut in a straight line with a hacksaw or jigsaw if you don’t like the previous method.

Instructions for installing plasterboard slopes

Elements cut from drywall can be installed:

• on mounting foam;
• for putty;
• on a frame.

For mounting foam

Fixing the cut sheets to the mounting foam is very simple. But this can be done immediately if there are no large holes on the slopes. If the depressions are up to 3 cm, you can install slopes immediately, only pre-fill the largest potholes with foam (do not apply a lot, somewhere around 1/3 of the volume of the excavation).

If the irregularities are deeper than 3 cm, it is better to pre-seal them with cement mortar or a composition for starting plaster.

The procedure for installing plasterboard door slopes on mounting foam is as follows:

1. Having prepared the site (removing dust and falling off pieces, filling too large recesses with foam), apply mounting foam to the back side of the drywall blank with a thin (1 cm no more) snake.
2. Install the element in place, press it against the wall, the way this fragment should stand.
3. Tear it off and put it aside for 5-8 minutes. The foam remained on the wall and on the drywall sheet. In a few minutes, it expands in volume.
4. Install part of the slope in place and press well. Leave in this state until the foam is completely cured (for 12-24 hours).
5. Close the gaps between the plasterboard elements and the wall with plaster.

The plasterboard slope is done, finishing work remains.

The disadvantages of this method are quite serious. Firstly, the side and vertical surfaces must first be leveled, otherwise you will not be able to install the elements evenly. Secondly, there is a possibility that the workpiece will bend / bend. Thirdly, there are voids. Well, the most important thing is that the mount is not the most reliable. But the door slopes are made simply and quickly.

For putty

Instead of mounting foam, you can “glue” the cut-out fragments onto the diluted putty:

1. Cakes are applied to the sheets from a composition diluted to a paste state for working with drywall (better – finishing, it is more “sticky”). They should be located around the perimeter and somewhere in the middle.
2. Spray the slope cleared of dust and cracked old plaster with water from a spray bottle.
3. Set the workpiece in place and press well. You can rest against the plane with your palms and “shake” the fragment from side to side. Feel that the plaster has become blurry, and a piece of drywall has “stuck”.
4. If the fragment is tight and does not move, you can leave it until the putty grabs (for a day, sometimes two). If the element is held insecurely and can move, it needs to be supported with something. Preferably around the edges and in the middle. Leave it like this for at least 10-12 hours. Then the supports can be removed and wait for the putty to dry completely.

The disadvantages of this method are the same. It is only necessary to say that the slopes on the windows in our apartment are made in this way. It was already 9 years ago, and so far – no problems.

On the frame

A more time-consuming, but also more reliable and versatile way to install plasterboard slopes is on an assembled frame. The frame is made of wooden bars or special profiles.

The guides are set vertically along the door jamb and at the corner. Between them, at a distance of 50-70 cm, small transverse jumpers are placed.

With this method, there is one feature: measurements are carried out after the frame has been installed. The cut parts are put in place and fixed with self-tapping screws.

If the frame is assembled from profiles, self-tapping screws are needed for metal, if from bars – for wood. In any case, you need to twist carefully: so as not to tear the cardboard. If you pull too hard, the plaster may even burst or crumble. A large amount of marriage of this kind will lead to the fact that the drywall slope will not hold well.

Seal gaps and design the outer corner

The final touches before finishing the slope on the door are the sealing of cracks. They can be glued with a special tape for sealing corners, and then puttied. This method is useful where the drywall joins the door frame or where the vertical and horizontal parts of the slope meet. If the cracks here turned out to be quite small, they can simply be covered with putty and leveled well.

There are also several ways to decorate the other side. The first is to paste over with the same tape for finishing the corners. But this method is suitable, if the angle is even, there are no problems. For beginners, this situation is rare. Much more often the angle needs to be “brought out”. In this case, use a metal paint corner. It has two sides perforated, which allows you to fix it in several ways:

• on pieces of plasticine;
• on a thick putty;
• on screws or nails.

In the case of carnations, you need to be careful: they can get hurt during work. In general, this method is convenient, but again, if the angle turned out to be almost perfect.

Perforated corners are set in level and in the same plane with the main wall. The resulting voids are filled with putty diluted to a pasty state. For initial leveling, starter putty is used. After it dries, all irregularities are smoothed out with a special mesh. It is used instead of sandpaper, which is clogged with putty instantly. The mesh for sanding putty is sold in the same stores that sell drywall. Then a layer of finishing, leveling putty is applied to the leveled surface. After drying, it also needs to be brought to a perfectly even state. They do it all with the same grid, only thinner.

If such a rigmarole with putty seems complicated to you, read about how to make slopes from MDF. There definitely isn’t any putty.

In general, without experience, it is difficult to make external corners ideal. Even when working with drywall. By installing perforated metal corners, we greatly facilitate our task. But still, it is not always possible to do everything perfectly. But even in this case there is a way out: decorative plastic corners. They are installed after the wall decoration is completed. They are selected either to match the door, or to match the finish. Stick to liquid nails. All you need to do is cut them to the desired length. They are cut with ordinary scissors. The main thing here is to cut off the angle at 45 ° at the top evenly.

If wood is more suitable for the design style, you can find a similar corner made of wood.

In fact, the role of a decorative corner for slopes is not only decoration. It also protects the corner from damage. This is especially true for entrance doors. If everything is covered with wallpaper, it also protects them from damage, which also happens quite often. That’s all, the slopes of drywall are made, and with their own hands.

All these methods can be combined, as, for example, in the video.