[masraum]

Originally Posted by javadog

The reason for my recommendation is twofold. One, I bet you’ll find some surprises if you take the drywall off. Two, I don’t like the idea of patching narrow pieces of drywall in around the windows, trying to get the inevitable but joints flat and then putting trim over the top of that mess.

I’m not there looking at it in person, but from the pictures, what you have looks like a good case of how not to build a wall.

You can always pull the drywall off the wall that has the windows and leave the rest, I suppose.

Lots of good points JD.

We've got 2 rooms downstairs that have drywall, the "living room" (which was once two rooms and we'll be dividing again) and the dining room. Both rooms are full of windows and doors. There's only a single wall with no "features."

I do like the chance to check and fix things (insulation around the windows, wiring) and maybe add new wiring. And it would be nice to start with fresh walls.

Another tidbit, upstairs we have a half bath that's functional, but horrible because it's small and has a low ceiling because it's up against the roof. We have consulted a plumber about moving it to the other side of upstairs where there's more room and a higher ceiling. His advice was that to get the necessary angle/drop for the soil-drain would require the ceiling in one of the downstairs rooms to be dropped by ~6". I believe the ceiling drywall is normally edge to edge and above/supported by the wall drywall. He advised that we should do the framing for the drop, but not put up the drywall (presumably to give them easier access to run the plumbing). If we're pulling the ceiling and dropping it, then it makes sense to me to go ahead and pull the walls and drywall the whole room fresh.

If we're doing one room (half of the living room) then assuming hanging and mudding drywall isn't expensive, it makes sense to me to have the whole place redone (which would fix the huge gaps around the windows).