03/06/2026
Watching this classic 1950s drywall training video… couldn’t help but think of my dad and my grandpa and laugh.
Three generations of carpentry. Three generations of drywall. And all that experience, long early days on a job site, it made me great at this. Not because I memorized a video but because decades of practice, mistakes, and improvisation thats been passed down like a family recipe at the cook out and I have even passed those skills on to my son.
120 years ago, my grandpa worked with hand-hewn timber and horsehair plaster. Corners were tricky… uneven… and sometimes the wall seemed like it had a mind of its own. My grandpa would squint, plaster on his hands, and mutter, “Eh… that’ll do… somehow.”
70 years ago, my dad was dealing with early sheetrock, longer hallways, indoor plumbing. He’d hold a scrap piece of drywall upside down, sideways, flip it over like a puzzle piece, thinking, “Maybe it’ll fit… probably won’t… but maybe.” And if it didn’t? Mud. Mud and paint fixed everything.
30 years ago, houses got bigger, ceilings got higher, kitchens got fancier. Tools were electric, walls were straighter… but drywall finishing was still: cut wrong, jam it in, mud it, sand it, step back, squint, and say… “Yeah… that’ll paint.”
Now, I’m sitting here watching this, getting ready to do a little work on Open-concept, 9-foot ceilings, vaulted walls… and I can still make a scrap piece fit like a tiny Jenga block. All that family knowledge, every improvisation, every “just add mud” has made me fast, precise, and confident.
Some things change… the houses, the tools, the size of the drywall sheets.
Some things do… and Some Things don't like sanding, and especially squinting. If you’ve worked with me you know I keep a few extra pairs of readers, to make sure you dont see me trying to squint like my favorite coach Mark Daigneault
