Drywall Repair and Finishing by Sacramento Handyman

Whether it is small dents or holes in your drywall or damage from water, there may be times in which you need to do drywall repair and finishing in your home.

What exactly does repair and finishing of drywall involve?

Are there any particular tools needed?

Drywall Tools

You will need specific tools to do drywall repair and finishing. They are:

• Drill – for drywall repair
• Drywall saw – for drywall repair
• Utility knife – for drywall repair
• Screwdriver – finishing
• Drywall sander – finishing
• Dust mask – finishing
• Mud pan – finishing
• Sanding block – finishing
• Sanding pole – finishing
• Taping knife – finishing

Materials

• Construction adhesive
• Drywall tape
• Masking tape
• Drywall screws
• Joint compound
• Drywall patch kit
• Drywall patch plaster
• Drywall screen
• Sanding sponge

Sacramento Handyman is your professional; we bring our tools, and when we finish the job we clean up leaving your home clean with no sign of the drywall damage you had.

Drywall Repair

Unlike plaster, drywall has a paper on both sides of the sheet of drywall giving it a smooth even surface for paint or paper. So when it comes to drywall repair how much of the drywall you will need to repair or replace depends on what kind of damage has been done and where, in the wall or ceiling, it is. It will depend on if it is a crack, dent, or hole.

A crack will most often appear at a seam where two sheets of drywall come together. To determine how deep the break is, you will need to carefully pull back the seam tape or paper on one corner edge of the crack with a utility or putty knife. If it is just shrinkage of the plaster between the paper, and not the tape that is loose, use new compound and a putty knife at a 70-degree angle to fill the crack. Once the mixture is dry, you may then finish it with sanding, wiping off dust, and painting.

A deeper crack is going to need a lot more work and will probably be less stress for you if you call a handyman like Sacramento Handyman. They can come in and repair the deep crack by deepening the crack to the stud surface and filling it with new compound allowing it to dry then finishing the drywall so it can be painted.

Hole repair like crack repair will depend on how big of a hole and where it is located how much you will need to repair or replace. Drywall repair kits can be found at most home hardware stores. These consist of spackle, a 4-inch self-adhesive patch, putty knife, and a piece of sandpaper; used for small holes of an inch to two and a half inches.

Larger holes will need a new piece of drywall; again most home repair stores will sell small pieces of drywall these usually are 12x12 inches. Once you have the correct size say 4x4 piece of drywall, trace around it on the wall, you are going to fix.

Next, you will need to score the back of the drywall square an inch in from all edges; you need to be careful not to cut through the front side of the paper of the drywall. You are going to break away the plaster between the papers leaving the front paper its original square size. You will also need to place a piece of 2x4 on two sides of the hole to screw the square patch into.

Once that is done, you will want to tape the seams on all sides, cover the seams with compound and allow to dry. Once it has dried, you can then sand, wipe off dust, and then paint.

Drywall Finishing

With drywall finishing, you need to understand that there are different levels and what you intend to do in the room or area that you are hanging drywall will determine what level of finishing you need to do to the drywall.

There are five levels of drywall finishing; 0 to 5, 0 being nothing but hanging the drywall and 5 being the finished entirely drywall ready for paint or papering inside your home.

The most challenging level is 5, it takes skill and experience to get that smooth velvet finish that you can paint or paper without wrinkles and bumps; it is probably best to leave this to the professionals.