How a High-End Home’s Drywall Crew Mastered Shadow Edges
In a blossoming subdivision of Libertyville, Ill., the finishing touches on a gorgeous, high-end home were coming together. The designers of this ultra-modern property weren’t content with standard drywall work — they wanted every little detail of the house to be special. That’s why they specified eye-catching, yet minimalistic shadow/reveal edge details running along all the flush baseboards and around every doorframe, and they chose Trim-Tex’s popular Architectural Z Shadow Bead to get the job done. But for the home’s drywall crew at Holden Services, Inc., who weren’t used to using this specialty decorative bead so extensively, this design would be easier said than done. Here’s how they mastered drywall shadow edges, creating an elegant look that will amaze the home's visitors for many years to come.
One thing you ought to know about Trim-Tex: we don’t just make high-quality drywall finishing solutions — we’re also actively dedicated to seeing you succeed at using them. Check out the video below, where you’ll see how one member of the Trim-Tex sales team, Noe Perez, personally stopped by the jobsite to help this drywall crew accomplish amazing things with their drywall shadow edges.
The drywallers at Holden Services are seasoned pros at this kind of custom residential work, and as you can see in the video, they expertly created perfect drywall reveal gaps throughout the home, just above all their flush base trim and around all their doorways. Where they ran into trouble wasn’t the shadow edges themselves, but the areas where two shadow edges met.
The true challenge of a long shadow edge like this is that you’re trying to make it look like the shadow is just one, continuous detail. In actuality, the effect is made by numerous separate lengths of bead butting up against one another. To create this seamless shadow effect, you need to make very precise miter cuts on each of these beads to form corners, so the whole thing flows together.
That’s where a Trim-Tex expert like Noe comes in. The problem the drywall crew was having was that, when they would cut the abutting Z Shadow Beads with a miter saw, the vinyl would sometimes start to buckle, causing the cuts to be imprecise. The solution, it turned out, was simple: Noe picked up a piece of scrap drywall left behind from cutting the reveal gaps, and used it as a backing material behind the bead’s Z-shaped flange (pictured in the photo carousel above). With this quick fix, he showed the guys how to easily make 45-degree-angle miter cuts to each bead, allowing multiple beads to form inside and outside corners that flawlessly create a continuous shadow edge.
From there, the team of pro drywallers were able to create amazing, seamless shadow edge effects with a minimalistic aesthetic that continued from flush baseboards to door casings — flooring their client.
Our kudos to the Holden Services crew for going above and beyond with their drywall work to create something truly memorable! And thanks to Noe Perez for always being willing to hop in his van to help out a customer (and take us along for the ride while he’s at it!).
Got a drywall problem that you could use a little help to solve? Hit the button below to get in touch with someone from our award-winning customer support team. And if you need someone like Noe to pay your jobsite a visit, they may be able to connect you to a member of our sales team to lend a hand!
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