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Finished In 48: Home Office With a Larger Than Average Fish Tank Gionni Thompson helps pull off a home office with an aquatic theme — and we're not talking about a goldfish bowl. From "Finished in 48" episode DF48-104

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6. To give the corners of your room a smooth, rounded finish and make them easier to paint, use some "paintable caulk" to seal them together. Just take your caulk and run a bead across the length of the corner where two walls meet. You can use your finger to smooth it out. Now, you can paint into those tricky corners of your room with ease and get the professional, finished look you want. You can do this around trim as well, to give these seams a matching smooth look. Let the caulk dry before you start painting or you may have a terrible mess on your hands.

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	Fast-drying paintable caulk is ideal for use in corners and around trim before painting.
	Gionni uses his finger to spread the caulk around the trim of an attic door. Paintable caulk placed around trim and in the corners of a room will give your paint job a smooth, finished and professional look throughout.
	A good underlayment can dampen the sound of walking on a wood floor, cutting down on squeaking and giving the floor a slightly softer feel on your feet.

7. When painting "new" walls, or walls that contain freshly hung drywall, remember that they will soak up a lot of paint. Make sure you have more than you think you'll need before you start so you don't run out mid-job. This is especially true if you choose not to use any primer. Although the homeowners in this episode chose not to use primer in order to save time, it is recommended that primer be used when painting raw drywall because it will give the paint better adhesion, it saves paint (which is more expensive than primer), and provides richer colors.

8. When cutting a full-sized wall into a half wall: first, make sure to reinforce the bottom part of the wall that will become the half wall. You can do this by taking some spare two-by-four pieces and running them horizontally across the studs of the lower part of the wall and nailing them in place on the stud boards. Make sure that each two-by-four stretches across at least two (ideally more) of the studs to help support the wall once you cut it in half. This is because once the top half is removed, there will be nothing other than drywall to hold the wall up and drywall is not strong enough to do this entirely on its own. You might demolish more of the wall than you bargained for if you don't complete this easy preventative step.

9. Before you begin laying a wood or bamboo floor, be sure to clean off your sub-floor entirely—making sure to remove all drywall and dried mud chunks until you have a smooth starting surface. This is to prevent bumps and unevenness in your floor after it is laid. Once this is done, you can put down an "underlayment" right on top of the sub-floor for the wood/bamboo to sit on. This prevents the two hard surfaces from fitting right on top of each other. There are different kinds of underlayment, but it is usually made of foam or cork or another somewhat soft material and is used primarily to dampen the sound when walking on the finished floor. It should prevent squeaking later on and will very slightly soften the feel of walking on the hard floor. Using a good underlayment has even been known to help smooth out minor imperfections in the sub-floor, providing a smoother base for your wood/bamboo to sit on and making your floor look professionally done.

10. You can avoid using screws when attaching your sub-floor by using wood glue in a caulk gun to glue down the plywood pieces to the floor joists. In doing this, you only need to use nails instead of screws to fully secure the sub-floor. By using a nail gun to sink nails into the joists after glue has been laid, you can truly save yourself a lot of time using this method. Putting a layer of glue down also helps to prevent squeaking later on as the floor pulls up from the joists. If you don't use glue, you should definitely use screws to attach the plywood to the joists. You could also use glue and screws but this is commonly considered "overkill."

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