₩1.5 Million of Flatness: The Wall Boards Arrive

Day twenty-nine. The wall campaign’s ammunition arrived: 55 sheets of GCS insulation board, about ₩1.5 million — one of the project’s largest single material purchases.

Test panels first. Because the first board sets the plane for every board after it, we refused to rush: three test panels only, laser level running throughout. The working sequence that emerged: measure the wall zone and pre-cut with a box cutter (including cutouts for outlets and taps before mounting), spread urethane adhesive generously across the back, press to the wall, then force each board flush with its neighbor — zero lippage between panels. We braced timber posts against the fresh boards to hold the pressure while the adhesive grabbed; the adhesive’s thick viscosity is what allows plane-adjustment at all.

The walls gave back centimeters. To let boards sit tight, the old wall surfaces had to be stripped honest — and this produced the day’s happiest surprise. Peeling back generations of wallpaper, hidden plasterboard, and buried tile layers, we recovered 1–2 cm of room depth on multiple walls. Decades of quick renovations had each added a layer; we subtracted them all at once. In a compact hanok, centimeters are real estate.

Where the wires will hide. The evening’s design session tackled the ceiling line connecting bedrooms 2 and 3 with the corridor: how to run electrical there without exposed conduit ruining the rafter view. Decision made — a purpose-built wooden box channel along the line, wiring concealed inside, with indirect LED strips mounted along the box to wash the ceiling in low light. The box solves an electrical problem and becomes the lighting design in the same move.

Boards on the wall, centimeters recovered, wiring resolved. The interior now has a plan for every surface.