How the mud & screws calculator works
Mud by the sheet
A level-4 finish consumes roughly 1.6 pounds of compound per sheet across all coats: the taping coat embeds paper (~0.8 lb), the fill coat builds the joint (~0.6), and the finish coat feathers (~0.2). Level 5 adds a full skim (multiply up); texture-only garages use less. Compound is cheap — buy the next bucket size and return nothing.
Tape and screws
- Paper tape: ~20 feet per sheet of wall board (verticals plus horizontals), on a 500-ft roll for most rooms. Mesh tape for hot-mud-only patches; paper for joints, always.
- Screws: 1¼-in coarse-thread drywall screws — 12 in o.c. field, 8 in at edges: roughly 44 screws per sheet. Ceilings: 12 everywhere, and 5/8 board steps up to 1⅝.
- Corners: bead for every outside corner; inside corners tape and knife.
The coat discipline
Thin coats beat thick ones — taping coat presses paper into full contact, fill coat builds with a 10-inch knife, finish feathers with a 12-inch. Sanding between coats with a raked work light beats every sanding gadget: ridges announce themselves in raking light long before paint does.