Drywall is not a dead-end street: many career development avenues branch off, offering options for specialization, and profit.
Welcome to another edition of the Pro Tradecraft Career Toolbox, where we help you turn your day job into a career. My name is Don Fernando, and today, I am speaking with the extraordinary Myron Ferguson, who turned the drudgery of drywall into high art. I bet you don't like that characterization of drywall, do you, Myron?
Welcome to the show.
Myron Ferguson: Well, the word drudgery bothers me a little bit, but it is, uh, it is kind of a repetitive trade to be in, and it's heavy and dusty work. So maybe there's a little drudgery there, but yeah,
FP: I think it's probably more drudgery if you don't know how to do it like me dealing with drywall, I suffer.
MF: People quite often say it's like art because they like watching me do it because it looks easy. I can make it look easy. I enjoy it when people compliment me, how easy I make it, and how nice it looks when I'm done.
FP: Sure. Because more than knowledge, it's a kind of physical, body knowledge, if you will, muscle memory on how to do it, and years of practice to make it look that easy.
A little bit like an athletic skill.
MF: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right because I've gotten pretty good at it, and I hope very good at it. But I remember years ago, you just said Something about athletics. I'm like, I would come home when I had two boys, and they liked the Chicago Bulls, right? I'd come home, and I'm like, well, I had a Michael Jordan day.
Everything I did came out smooth and perfect, you know, because maybe I'm not Michael Jordan, but sometimes I feel like that at work, which is, which is a good feeling.
FP: So, let's consider drywall for a second. It's an evolution of what, after doing just a little bit of research, I discovered is a 9,000-year-old art form that used to cover ancient walls in Rome and Egypt, sometimes just for wall surfaces, like we use drywall, other times for ornamentation.
Of course, I'm speaking about plaster. Have you done any plasterwork? How do you see drywall in relation to this rich historical tradition and the evolution from plaster to drywall?
MF: Well, I think, uh, plaster is a better finish. I mean, it's, it's more solid, and I live in a pretty historic town. A lot of the homes are plaster.
And if I'm doing work in those homes, they don't really want me to replace the plaster or go over the top of the plaster with drywall. So, so yes, I have done some plaster work out of necessity. Well, it takes a lot of skill. I don't know about the higher level, but I've developed the skills because I've done drywall for so long, I've developed the skills.
And I suppose if I did plaster more often, I would also develop those skills.
FP: And what about the, uh, I mean, why did we, if, replace, uh, plaster if drywall is not quite as good a material?
MF: Well, after World War II, when there was a housing boom, you know, houses were going up like crazy, and they really needed to get it done faster.
Some people think, well, why would drywall be faster? You know, you've got it. You know, when you come into plaster Something, basically you put the base coat on, the next day the finish coat, and you're, you're done. But with drywall, it dried faster, and you were able to put your paint finishes on it sooner.
That's why it got the name drywall. It kind of took over. I think back in the day, plaster didn't take drywall seriously enough. And I think they kind of missed the boat. They should have really been pushing more of their product and accepted drywall as part of their trade as well. And I don't think plastic would have disappeared.
It didn't disappear, but I don't think it would have taken the backseat to drywall the way it did.
Making existing jobs more profitable
I've watched you evolve your work by reading your articles, magazines, books, and many YouTube videos. I'd like to know a little bit about your career and how you use drywall to create not just smooth walls, but also sculptural type installations where you've layered drywall on the wall to to create either faux woodwork-type finishes or some actual Artistic installations.
I think I saw an article about you doing it. It was a kid's bedroom, and it had some, some really pretty three-dimensional layering done onto the wall. You've evolved quite a career that isn't just simply making walls smooth. Tell us a little bit about that.
Drywall is quite often done by the square foot.
And so you gotta, you gotta work really fast to make money. And I didn't really love that type of atmosphere, you know? So I wanted to evolve into more specialized, uh, You know, customers that appreciated quality rather than just getting it done as fast as possible. And then also, while I'm on the job site, I want to stay there.
I'm there with my tools, my employees. I want to do whatever I can. So, we start introducing like, uh, tray ceilings and different layers. I've done wainscoting, and I did a Hollywood scene on somebody's wall once. All with different layers of drywall and different colors of paint, and that's how I started making money Without having to rush rush rush through everything.
I would be on the job site, and the customers wanted Something extra, and they trusted me to do that. And I even got into colored plaster finishes. A few years ago, because drywall is part of the wall assembly and ceiling assembly, I even got into, um, you know, creating more airtight drywall and everything that went with that.
So my business has really evolved from doing the track homes, which is what I originally started doing, where we finish one house every week, so maybe not doing bigger houses, but doing more high-end homes that they wanted the little experts.
Spreading a career focus beyond the jobsite
You're also quite the video producer and writer.
You've got a lot of published work on drywall magazine articles and books, and I've seen your demonstrations at the trade shows. Now, do you teach, do you have an apprenticeship type program, even informally where you pass some of this knowledge and wisdom onto younger folk?
I do, but I wish I did a lot more of it.
That's kind of like how I see myself. For the rest of my career, I am doing more and more of that, but I don't have anything formal other than, you know, my videos and my book and stuff. I do occasionally get a call. They're like, Hey, we've got a crew, and we're getting more into the dry bulb business.
Would you come to our site and bring your tools and show us how to use them? I've got a job right here in town coming up soon. There's a couple of young guys I met up the other day. I think they're in their twenties. They're full of enthusiasm. So their boss wants me to work with them on extra eyeballs.
Whenever I do any sort of training trade shows, talks, or articles, I always emphasize how much I love the building trade and how it is a great career. I told you earlier that I'm the fourth-generation building contractor in my family. I'm the only drywall contractor in my family, and I have three children, and they're all in the building trades. None of them really get their hands too dirty, though.
They're more into like construction management type stuff, but there, I think They got into that because they worked with me with every younger. And they're better at their jobs because they have hands-on knowledge of how things go together in a field but no really it's training People's particularly young people to be in the building trades and showing my enthusiasm for it is what I really tried I mean, that's how I got to be that drywall guy I remember one day I came home and I was talking to my wife kind of I was complaining, you know I'm like all the employees did this and this app and she said to me well if you don't like what you do I'm like, what do you mean?
I love it. She's like, well, you should hear yourself. You're complaining. So I decided from that day on, I was only going to say good things. And so it's that mentality when you're always positive. Next thing you know, everybody thinks I love drywall work. And now I've convinced myself that I love drywall work.
And it became a little bit contagious. And so maybe I'm crazy, but I love drywall work and I love the building trades. So there you go.
Innovative products offer new opportunities
That is fantastic. That's really, really inspiring. I noticed that you're doing a lot of other things. For example, you have a line of wall surfaces that you call Fresco Harmony.
Tell us about this venture.
It's actually not my product. You would ask me that. I'm trying to think of the guy's name. Um, but anyway, he's from New Mexico, and I met him a few years ago. He's got some great products. At the time, I was looking for a decorative colored plaster that was really easy to apply, and I was like, well, that doesn't exist.
But I met him and it's a colored plaster, but it's not really plaster. It's a color you add to joint compound. Now, you can create Something similar to the Venetian plasters, which, in my opinion, is a much easier application method. So I really, I don't live in New Mexico. So that type of finish isn't as popular here, but it's really starting to catch on.
I mean, If I were to give you a tour of my house, I could show you two or three nice ceilings that I've done with that.
Well, I've looked at the website. It has some really beautiful stuff. I mean, just gorgeous. The colors. And you're right. It looks a little bit like a clay wall, if you will.
Right. Yeah. It's nice.
I was teasing my wife. I'm like, you know, if I was single, this entire house would be covered with fresco harmony. And she's like, well, I like it. I don't like it that much. So it's a matter of taste. There are a lot of nice products out there that are. Coming up all the time and it's certainly worth looking into I mean a few years ago.
I did a A bunch of stuff with american clay plaster I really that really took off for me as well around here I did a bunch of really nice stuff with that But that's in my opinion a little harder to work with and not quite as durable of a finish But it's still nice. So, you know depends on the customer.
Yes. I've I have some experience with that. It's supposed to clean the air, clay, but you're right. It's a little bit susceptible to scratches and kids running by and
Drywall contractors as home performance specialists?
FP: How does drywall fit into high-performance buildings? You mentioned this a few minutes ago: drywall is on your walls, along your exterior air barrier, and on all your exterior walls and ceilings.
Why not try to make that your interior air barrier by making it more airtight by gluing it and foaming and sealing around all the outlets and things? It plays an integral part. And I got into home performance a few years ago because I was building a new house for myself, and I wanted to build a certified green home.
At the time, I became a green home verifier. And I learned about all the importance of having an air barrier. And everybody concentrates a lot on the exterior air barriers. But any little flaw in that exterior air barrier is a flaw. And so it's kind of like a belt and suspenders thing.
If you do a great job outside, why not do a great job on the inside as well? Particularly with a house that has a vented attic. So that just led to another thing for me to do; another thing I could offer my customers. You have to pass a blower door test to get your CO, and I'm going to help you pass it by doing a really high-quality airtight drywall job for you.
That just added another little thing to my business plan.
You do offer that service, though, such as blower door testing. Is that just to complement what you're doing and verify that it has worked? Or do you actually offer it as an energy rater or a blower door tester?
I do the blower door testing for multiple contractors in the area. Even if I don't do the drywall or insulation work there, they need to do it to get their CO.
I also consult on that because when this first came into effect, even though the contractor was given plenty of notice that this was going to happen, they were failing. They could not pass this blower door test because they just didn't take it seriously enough. So I did some consulting, where I would help them. I would do all these inspections and even some air sealing for them, and then I would do the blower door test a couple of times to see how it was going.
So that's what I do that for. It's a nice little extra income, and I don't have to lift heavy stuff. So, that's what I'm also looking for at this point in my life as well too.
For those who may not know what a blower door test is, it measures how tight a house is—how many air exchanges it has under natural conditions.
What I do is depressurize the house, and—based on all these calculations and the cubic feet of space in there—I can tell you how many air exchanges you have per hour under natural conditions. And that's important—how leaky is your house? Many people want it to be leaky because they thinbk houses need to "breathe."
Leaky houses are bad
But when your house is breathing, you know, when you haven't done anything to air seal or control where it's coming in and out, You're bringing in and out contaminated air. You're bringing moist air into your wall and ceiling cavities. You want to control that. And you also want to have lower energy bills.
That's the key thing here. You want a nice, healthy home where all your air exchanges are under controlled ventilation. And it's a healthier home. And my gosh, the last house I lived in, I had 3,400 square feet of living space and a heated two-car garage. My energy bills are only $3,000 a year, and we kept it comfortable, and I didn't even install air conditioning.
We didn't need it, and I did the same thing at my brother's house out in Colorado. I'm like, Kevin, if you listen to me, because he's like, hi, everybody in the development's got icicles down to the ground. I'm like, if you listen to me, you'll have no icicles and you probably won't need air conditioning.
I went to visit him a year later and walked in. I was like, oh, you did get air conditioning. He was like, no, it's just naturally cool in here. And he was like, all the neighbors are envious of him. Sure. So yes, he had to spend money on things you can't see, which is the problem. Everybody wants this quartz countertop because they can see it.
They want the beautiful hardwood floor. They don't care about the insulation until they get their first energy bill. Then they're like, Oh, I wish we spent more money on that. So these are the things that I've tried to convince people all the time. It is important and done. For our own health and safety as well, you know, the operating system of the house what you're referring to with the icicles is uh the heat escaping through the ceiling into the attic and causing the melting on the roof because you're actually Heating your roof surface in the middle of winter, which is probably not where you want to put your energy dollars So you're talking about sealing that all off so that the heat stays within the house and then you don't get the icicles
Right, but you still need to have an air exchange system because you live in this house.
Tight houses allow you to control indoor air
You're creating humidity. You're creating Fumes when you cook and things like that. So you still need to have a controlled air exchange Which is a hard concept for some people to understand air exchange system in my basement and there's actually a way for me to shut that off if I wanted to and that's always my Fear we build these really airtight homes and now the homeowner can shut that off but The key to it is don't have the shut off switch in a real obvious place and buy a quality system that's very quiet.
Like, I don't even know mine is on until I walk down into my utility room with my ear against the unit. Then I know it's on. So there's not, it's not like I constantly hear this and think, Oh man, all this energy I'm using by that little motor running. That's irrelevant. Health and safety, that doesn't use a lot of electricity either.
Yeah, and a heat exchanger is just essentially, um, a fan that draws outdoor air in and exhausts indoor air, but in a controlled way. The key word that you said was controlled. So that, you know, that air is dehumidified, it's pre-warmed or cooled depending on the season, and it's a controlled thing rather than arbitrary, just leaking from wherever.
A lot of people think the house needs to breathe. The pressure in your house is constantly changing, you know, like as soon as I turn on my bathroom fan, it's becoming negative pressure. It's windy against my house. It's doing the opposite. So it's constantly changing. So, the air constantly wants to come in or out of your home.
We want that to come in and out of your home in a controlled, healthy way. Like, you know, I have exhaust ports in the bathrooms, in the kitchen area here, and in my foyer. Which is near the attached garage and then I have fresh air coming into the bedrooms. And I have one fresh air in the living room here, and in my main hallway, So fresh air where you need it and exhaust, and it was simple. I actually installed it myself, and it was a lot of pipes because it's got to be balanced; it works really well.
Now look how far we've come from drywall to healthy and to indoor air.
The relationships that you've created with this simple material.
Tools of the trade
Yeah, I've evolved. Like, you didn't ask this question, but let me start it for you. I remember when I first went into the business, I didn't have any money. And I wanted to go into the construction business. I was working for my grandfather.
So I'm like, well, I'm going to the drywall business, because I've been doing stuff for him. So basically, I had a bucket with some tools, you know, screw gun, a couple of trowels, and knives, right? When I do demonstrations, I'll hold up those tools, and I'll tell people this: I can take any drywall job you give me with this bucket of tools.
But I have these tools that I use. Yeah, so it's really the tools have really evolved, but they're not new actually. The inventor of the automatic tools was aims tools And I don't know I bet you that was 50 years ago That they came up with these tools, but you know They are kind of expensive the example I give when I tell people that I use these tools and that okay My investment is four thousand dollars, right?
And uh when I was in my 20s, I could tape six thousand square feet of drywall in a day But that was by myself and it was a hard day a 10 hour day. I bought these tools, And suddenly, I can take 9, 000 square feet by myself in a day and be home by four o'clock. It was a no brainer. They paid for themselves.
Quality workmanship is more fulfilling and profitable
Plus, I believe the quality is better, and achieving a higher quality is easier. When I have new employees, they are more productive at taping a lot faster than if we were hand taping. So, the, the tools that we bought, even, okay, taping tools, and we got the screw guns with the collated screws, and I didn't even use a drywall router when I first started, I just used a keyhole saw, although I think routers were around, I was probably too cheap to buy one, but, and now even the materials, we have 54-inch high drywall.
For your nine-foot walls. So higher quality, if you, if you use a 48-inch high, uh, nine-foot walls, you double the linear finish of scenes that you need to take. So, and the longer links, I know people laugh sometimes because I'll order 16-foot-long pieces of the drywall. And they're like, well, how do you even lift it?
Well, I like, Oh, well I have help, you know, I'm not attempting to do it myself. But it's higher quality because people expect high quality. They're not happy. The expectations are super high for me, at least. And where I live in upstate New York, we don't do any texturing. Everything is a smooth wall. There are no knockdowns.
There are no hand trowel finishes. It's all smooth. So, the expectations are super high. So we have to try to meet those expectations and use all these tools in different compounds and things, as well as the proper longer links of drywall and things like that, to help me achieve that because what I always tell people is okay.
The expectations are really high. I can't ask the customer to lower their expectations. I have to try my best to meet them, but be realistic. For example, I was recently at a job doing some consulting where they were having trouble with the finish. The customer just wasn't happy. I did a walkthrough, and there were lots of windows in this house, some high walls, and sun and light Shooting across all these walls.
You could also walk and look as you're walking from room to room. You're looking right down these walls so that you can see all the little imperfections. I think the drywall job was pretty good. It could have been a little better, but it was because of the lighting and the construction of the house That it was difficult to achieve something the customer was really happy with. There were things that they could have now in hindsight. There are things that I think they'll do differently next time.
Maybe even warn the customer ahead of time, but it was a tricky thing. And it's funny because. I even told him, I don't know, I live in a new house, and I think I can only find five things I don't like in my drive over. And then the other day, I'm in my little coffee bar over here, and for that two minutes in the morning, the Sun shone through that little window against that wall where I have an outside corner, and I could see defects in my taping.
And that's the only time of day I would see that. And what it was, it was just an edge that was not feathered in perfectly or just a slight difference in the texture of the surfaces, and I could see it with plaster—getting back to the plaster. You don't have those different textures Or porosities that you have when you deal with drywall work, but that being said, plaster is not a perfectly smooth surface either. It has a lot of trial movement and tool movement in it, which adds To the beauty of it, in my opinion, but with these houses, with all these high walls and light shining, it can be pretty difficult to hide.
We've also gotten used to factory finishes like automobile finishes and forget that a house is a product made by hand.
Right, right. The last person you want to do drywall work is somebody who paints cars. You know, back in the day, they used to use, they used to fix all the dents, you know, they put that Bondo and stuff on it, and then they would, they would get it perfect.
Those customers would expect the same thing out of drywall work. But that being said, you gotta go with the proper paint finishes, too. I always recommend what kind of paint you should put on the ceilings and walls when I leave. And I even suggest that maybe let me prime first; also, I can do my walkthrough after I prime and fix any little imperfections.
Oh, I see. You Can see it after it's been primed, whereas when it's just the draw drywall finish, it's a little bit harder to spot some of the potential defects.
Right. Because the dust is filled or you're tired and, uh, You didn't see that little scratch that it's going to show through as soon as you put some primer on it
Now we're talking here about respecting quality, achieving quality, taking pride in quality, and we've gone through your whole career. Do you have any general advice in closing for people who get into the trades and usually make some quick money, just like you did, with a small set of tools, who don't understand that they have a whole lifetime ahead of them and that that first step with maybe a hammer or a trowel could be the first step into a lifelong career?
Do you have any parting advice for our aspiring tradesmen on turning any trade into Something fulfilling and purposeful? That also provides a good living as well.
Specialization sets you apart
Well, what I think is essential is that I specialize in something. I didn't want to become a general contractor, and many people, like my son-in-law, want to be a general contractor, so he's doing a little bit of everything.
I mainly specialized in drywall. I've evolved, but I got really good at that one thing. As a result, my estimate was easier. I knew exactly what I was getting into, how much materials would cost, and how much time I thought it would take. So specializing is important. Because I'm mostly just in a drywall business, I've got this big network of contractors I've worked for, so I had steady work coming in.
And I didn't have to worry about who would hire me next. They appreciated my attention to detail. You know, I think that's what I would suggest. Like, if you're going to be a roofing contractor, be a roofing contractor.
You know, get good at that one thing. And, of course, it branches out into little different things, just like I did. But to start, as I've often said, a few years ago, I got into sound control because that's part of the drywall as well. I think I would have been an acoustical engineer if I had to start over. You know, and there again, I'm talking about specializing in one little thing. I talked to my kids about that, but none wanted to do that.
But, you know, anyway, that's what I think I would do.
Focus, get very good, and then life take you.
Yeah, try to relax. I have other hobbies, too. I have many other hobbies that I enjoy.
Thank you so much, Myron. Your experience, wisdom, and approach to life and the trades are really inspiring. I really appreciate your time. And I'm sure all the listeners have appreciated your words of wisdom and will likely put them into practice. Thank you so much for being with us here today.
I enjoy doing this kind of stuff. Thank you.