Simple Drywall repairs

So you went and messed up your walls did ya? Well no worries, I can help you get that straightend right out! Drywall is a interesting material, it helps to understand a little bit about it if you are going to be working on it.

Drywall is made up of a solid but fragile packing of powder that is covered by layers of paper. Pretty durable material unless it gets wet or banged. The reason you end up with damage to the sheetrock when removing wallpaper is it gets wet ( which makes it soft) then you start scraping on it and pull the paper surface loose or poke holes into it.

Here’s how you fix it.

1. You must allow the drywall to get completely dry before you begin to try to do anything to it.

2. Once your wall surface is dry, you will want to give it a lite sanding. Sanding Blocks or a sanding pole would be your best bet, you can purchase either or both at your local Home Depot or Lowe’s.

3. Next, take your sheetrock mud and fill your mud pan about 1/2 full so that you can work it back and forth with your mud knife a little to loosen it up. After a moment of this you will notice the mud becoming a creamy and smooth texture, this is a good thing.

4. Depending on the size of the hole you are trying to repair you can take a couple of different directions here. First lets assume this is a small ding on the surface, the size of a quarter or so, take your mud and fill the surface of the hole completely, take the mud knife and scrape the wall so that the surface of the wall has no mud on it. Only the hole is filled level to the wall surface.

Let it dry just like that, resist the temptation to keep messing with it. It will take 1 to 2 hours usually. Once the hole is dry, lightly sand the spot you are working on, nothing major just a good once over to make it smooth.

At this point the hole should be a little sunk in from the mud drying, that is again a good thing. Take your mud pan and knife and give the hole a second coating. This time leave the mud just a little raised up so that you can sand it flat once it has dried. This step is the trickiest and does take some practice to get good at it.

5. Now that your hole is filled and dried, take your sanding block and sand the hole until the area is level to the wall surface. This is a crucial step because if it is not level you will see it once you apply paint, so make sure you get it flat to the wall. If for some reason you over do it you can always put more mud on it and do it again.

6. Your handy work looks great I am sure, so get yourself a good primer and coat the area’s that you applied mud to before you paint so that the spots will not be noticed.

7. Now paint away.

Good Luck and remember, if you get stuck you can always call me. Mike 864-621-8571