Pre-fill first, then tape

New ceilings in a living room and a dining room. The tan lines along the joints are not the tape. They are the pre-fill: every joint and gap packed with setting compound, Sheetrock 45 or 90, before any tape goes on.

Tape bedded on a filled joint sits flat. Tape bridging a gap sits on air, and that is the joint that cracks a year later. The screw heads are still open in these pictures; they get filled with 90 after the first rolled coat, then the corners, then the butt joints get coated wider than the straights, because a butt joint stands proud of the board and the only way to hide it is to spread it over more width.

Between every coat: let it dry, scuff sand. The stairs, the fireplace and the windows are wrapped because sanding dust goes everywhere a sheet is not.