mobilehomerepair.com

We have a very large 1998 Redman double wide. About 2 years ago I got really tired of those ugly slat's on the walls that made our family room look like a trailer. We removed the slats and filled and plastered for days and it looked great. Now 2 years later where the ugly slats were we now have crack's at every seam. I'm really in need of a winter project and would love to have nice walls again. Idea's? Oh BTW we live in central NY state on the top of a mountain with very cold winters and the summer brings alot of heat from the altitude. Please Help!!

It is possible that just regular expansion and contraction of the home is cracking the panel joints. That is why they used the batten molding on the paneling to start with. You could try taping the joints but you'd probably have to texture your walls to hide the joint tape.

Hi JD and thanks! I was thinking the same thing. But taping sounds like alot of work. I've been scouring the net all day and have found alot of people seem to be very happy with a paintable caulk. I wonder if this would work for me also as these are really only hairline cracks where the seams meet that the batten covered. I guess at worst we can put some new batten up if the caulk doesn't work

Being up north you may find that you can not get rid of all of the cracks. The cold weather does a number on homes, as JD said with normal expansion & contraction. Also add in movement from frost heave, unless you are on a full below frost line foundation. I have had 3 repeat cracks in our front wall that seem to crack no matter what I do, but I am not on a full foundation either.

Greg

i have done the same as greg and most others have done , with the spackel, one room i used flat lattice and painted them the wall color, and iin the kitchen i used a good vinle wall paper, i also added fake brick paneling in the palor wall and glued and nail. seams so tight you can't see them plus it's suppose to look like black morter. sorry about spelling no coffee yet heh heh

Painter's caulk worked for me.

This is how we did our drywall,we did not fill/tape at all,ceiling is not drywall. We did my mom's ceilling similar to this but routered all sides--my mom's took a long time to do but really looks nice
Melissa

Oh I could only post 3 photos,here is the other ceilings, the other posts is our vacation home/camp, the log slabs will not work in a mobile home,just say'n;) this is still a work in progress--why I hate starting on a project before one is totally done,that is why we r starting another new project next week as soon as I get the electrician to get an est--oh wait we have one started hope to finish this weekend will post photos when done.
Melissa can u say addicted to DIY

nice work I like the log look

Wow Diva. I really like all the work your family does. You said the ceilings weren't drywall? What are they?

The ceiling in the mobile home are masonite the 4 x 8 ft sheets very light weight,I filled in the screw wholes like drywall and primed--2 coats- and painted I use a satin and sometime a semi gloss on my ceilings,easy to wipe off--we have rentals too and U would be shocked what comes off walls/ceiling in a house with smokers---our mobile homes are 1970 models and there was drywall when we bought it on the ceilings and the ceilings dropped some and were leaking --the drywall was too heavy, we took off the drywall first and U could watch the ceiling/roof lift back into shape and the leaking stopped,drywall was too heavy so I looked for an alternitive, could not afford or find what the manufatcure used so the masonite I got a small piece and tried it by painting to see if that would work and it was cheep $5 a sheet and light weight--we used a drywall lift,just to make it easy,we did it all in afew hours,whole mh and we own the lift as we do a lot of drywall in our rentals.
Thanks this is only a very small % of the remodels we have done if you click on my dcdiva you should be able to see a few of the homes we have done I sent a post with many of the albums of some of the homes--we do them in our spare time I own a daycare center and my dh runs a chemical plant so we work full time , the mh was for our dd and we took a month this summer plus many weekends to do it--the whole remodel of it is posted here too--wished they had the photo album place still here ,would b easier
Melissa