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Interior Finishes

Drywall. SIPs walls and ceilings are usually covered with drywall on the interior. Applying drywall is a breeze, since the solid OSB backing everywhere allows you to attach it anywhere and break your joints anywhere. Another bonus is that you shouldn't have to do much if any shimming.

Window and door jambs. Remember that typical SIPs are dimensionally 3/8" thicker than the normal frame wall. Therefore, your wood window jambs will need small interior extensions and your exterior doors will need 3/8" exterior extensions. With vinyl windows, the wider jamb won't matter where you wrap the windows with drywall returns.

Cabinets. While it's true that you can hang a picture anywhere on a SIP wall, the same doesn't necessarily follow for cabinets. The typical 7/16" interior sheathing doesn't provide enough holding power without some reinforcement. Two techniques are typically used. First, you can beef up your standard attachment approach. Start by using a much closer screw alignment-say, every 6" or 8", compared to the normal wider spacing. For particularly heavy cabinets, you can use toggle bolts that clamp to the back side of the panel's interior facing. And where cabinets reach to full wall height, you can attach them along the top to the panel's top plate. Second, the other commonly recommended approach is to glue and screw two 4"-6" backer strips of 1/2" plywood (one high and one low) horizontally behind the cabinets; once the adhesive has set, then screw the cabinets on through the two pieces of wood. Finish it off by infilling with drywall between the plywood strips, plus apply it above and below the two strips.

Trim. Remember that your trim will fasten best to the bottom plate. The higher you nail off your trim, the more likely you'll be to miss the bottom plate, thereby only nailing into the OSB facing. Any pull by slightly warped trim and that trim may not fit tightly everywhere against the drywall without some double nailing (at angles) here and there.

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