February 13, 2026
Wall-to-wall drama
The wonder of modern drywall
Drywall Drama: Smart walls, exposed pipes, and the brick snub
TLDR: A breezy history of drywall sparked a brawl: readers mocked “smart walls,” raged about hiding pipes and wires, pushed for exposed conduits, and scolded the piece for ignoring brick, while picture-rail fans flexed. It matters because how we build walls decides how we repair, decorate, and live with our homes.
The post started as a love letter to drywall—how humanity went from mud on sticks (hello, wattle and daub) to plaster on wood to today’s factory-made gypsum boards. But the real spectacle erupted in the comments. One joker cracked, “finally, Wi‑Fi walls!”, and the thread instantly split into camps: Team Exposed and Team Drywall. The loudest chorus? Folks mad that we hide pipes and wires behind paper-thin walls only to smash them open later. “Why make them so frustratingly inaccessible?” cried one exasperated homeowner, cue a stampede of nodding emojis and war stories.
Enter the fix-it crowd with a rallying cry: “Conduit all the things!”—surface-mounted pipes and cables, painted to match, industrial loft vibes without the drywall dust. Meanwhile, a brick-and-concrete defender stormed in with a surgical “Ctrl‑F ‘brick’” call‑out, accusing the piece of snubbing the real OGs of wall life. And just when you thought it couldn’t get nerdier, a picture-rail evangelist swanned in to declare those “kitschy and twee” rails actually superior to pounding nails into crumbly walls—especially if you own an art gallery’s worth of frames. TL;DR: the article praised drywall’s efficiency; the crowd turned it into a wall-world culture war over maintenance, aesthetics, and where your cat photo should hang.
Key Points
- •Wattle-and-daub (woven wood with mud) is an ancient wall method used for at least 6,000 years, with some panels lasting centuries.
- •Plaster-and-lath emerged by the early 20th century, using gypsum plaster over wooden lath, but was labor-intensive and required multiple coats and drying times.
- •Historical plaster mixes often included asbestos (c. 1870s–1970s) for fire resistance, later recognized as toxic.
- •Modern drywall (gypsum board/plasterboard) is gypsum plaster pressed between heavy paper, manufactured off-site for consistency.
- •Drywall, developed in the early 20th century, became the standard in American homes by the 1950s, offering smooth, paintable surfaces.