6 Drywall Finishing Accessories for Endless Possibilities
Almost anyone who’s worked in the drywall industry for more than a few years knows about Trim-Tex. But they may only associate that name with one or two specific drywall finishing accessories. For some, it means Tear Away L Bead and only Tear Away L Bead. For others, maybe they only ever used our standard 90-degree corner bead. For some younger folks, maybe it means Fast Edge Paper or Mud Set Bead. For seasoned pros like our friends at Drywall Nation, who are well-versed in essentially everything in the Trim-Tex catalog, they don’t think of just one or two beads — they see endless possibilities.
Check out the video below to see what we’re talking about, where Drywall Nation’s Brian Kitchin takes you through a recent project of his — a tiny house with an ultra-modern, completely trimless design aesthetic — and shows you the six drywall finishing accessories he chose to complete it.
This house, the smallest home Brian has ever worked on, nevertheless presented some huge challenges. With no baseboards and no finish trim, everything needed to be returned with drywall and filled with modern touches. Read on and we’ll go through each of the six beads and why they were chosen for this unique project.
When you talk about endless possibilities, no single solution fits the bill more than Fast Edge Roll. That’s because this rolled bead is flexible enough to fit just about any angle, outside or inside, sharp or obtuse. This tiny home had sloped ceilings with 45-degree inside corners — a perfect fit for Fast Edge Roll. With 100 feet of bead in one box, you get all the durability of a Trim-Tex vinyl corner bead, the bond strength of its Mud Lock Technology and the convenience of a rolled product. Enough said!
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This small house only has two doors: one to the bathroom and one to the mechanical room. For modern, minimalist flair, these trimless doors were cased with Architectural Z Shadow Bead butting up against the jambs. This bead provides an unforgettable look without overpowering the interior space. It’s no wonder why this bead is so popular among drywall finishers and architects! Learn how to finish your own trimless door with Z Shadow Bead here.
A couple of Brian’s windows had basic, half-inch window returns that didn’t require anything fancy. For these areas, he used the half-inch version of our Architectural L Bead, which allowed him to easily finish these rough drywall edges, leaving behind a clean finished border around each window. For the other windows with deeper returns, however, a larger solution was needed…
For all the windows that were set further back, you could spend the time and material to finish the face of the drywall for each side of each window return, or you could use accomplish all this with one vinyl solution: Super L Bead. This bead, and its even larger counterpart Giant L Bead, spans the entire window return to make this process fast and simple — no extra drywall needed.
Helpfully, Super L Bead comes prescored to multiple lengths. So, even though the vinyl flange for Super L Bead is 3 ⅛” total, Brian was able to easily tear his beads down to size to match his 1 ⅝” window returns.
Normally, for finishing the bases of drywall sans baseboards to achieve a modern look, Brian might use Z Shadow Bead again, as he has in the past. But for this unique project, the house was built on a floating concrete slab that will be prone to movement over time, which could cause the vinyl flanges of Z Shadow Bead to crack or buckle under the pressure.
So, instead, Brian ingeniously reached for Trim-Tex’s Super Seal Tear Away L Bead. This underutilized solution wields a flexible bubble gasket on its apex, forming a permanent seal wherever it’s installed, including uneven surfaces. This way, Brian is still able to achieve a shadow-like detail along the bases of his walls, but even as the slab moves slightly through the years, the seal stays tight and the finish remains free of cracks. Bravo!
When you’re talking drywall corners, you can’t count out the gold standard for 90-degree angles, the standard Trim-Tex Corner Bead. Its durability, versatility and soft profile has been keeping corners looking great all over the world for many years, and worked its magic for this tiny house as well.
These six drywall finishing accessories provided endless possibilities for Drywall Nation’s latest project, but those are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got a huge arsenal of solutions fit to tackle any drywall problem. To take a look at everything Trim-Tex has to offer, hit the button below to sign up to receive a free copy of the latest edition of our catalog!
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