Drywall repair can be tricky. If you’re not familiar with the process, it can be learned. The process itself is not hard. The hard part is the execution. Making it look good. Home owners see videos online, list the steps with confidence and then give it a shot. Much to their surprise, Mudding, or Taping as it is also called, is tough! It is quite an art to be able to properly spread the mud onto a specific area, properly tapering it off at the edges in the right amount, while holding a hoc or tray in the other hand and all the while not dropping any of it. Not to mention having to clean your home 4 times after having sanded the patch.

This is a problem PatchBoyz Drywall Repair handles for home owners every day.

Bonus Tip: If you’re mudding overhead… wear a hat.

Let’s take a look at the process one would undertake to fix a patch and then we’ll talk about how some of it can be done more efficiently.

1. Lay your plastic/ floor protection

Consider also placing thumbtacks in your ceiling and hanging plastic down to create a full containment.

2. Bring all your supplies onto your floor protection

The reason for this is that with a little poor luck, your mud will fall on the ground and you will end up stepping onto it. Not the end of the world, as it can be cleaned. If your materials aren’t close, you will end up walking all over the home with your dirty shoes, leaving a much bigger mess. Before moving onto the next step, read step 12 regarding paint chips.

3. Cut the drywall hole into a square

In this hole you will be placing a matching square piece, so you need clean cut lines. Use a level and a pencil to mark your straight lines before using a knife.

4. Install backing

Depending on the size of the hole, you will want to install pieces of wood at the back of the existing drywall in order to secure the new piece. These pieces are places behind the existing wall and create a stop for new piece of drywall to go in. Sink your screws into the existing drywall and piece of wood, while holding the piece of wood with your hand. Careful not to drive the screw into your hand if it’s a thin piece of wood.

5. Cut drywall to match hole

Measure out your square/rectangular hole and then draw a slightly smaller one on the new piece of drywall. It should be about 1/8” shorter on each side. If you’ve cut it even smaller, no worries as pre-filling and taping will cover the gap.

6. Fasten your new piece to the backing

Place your drywall into the matching hole and fasten the drywall to the backing previously installed, using 1”1/4 drywall screws. Theses have a Philips screw (star) pattern.

7. Tape the patch

Place mud all along the seams of the new and existing drywall. We recommend prefilling your gaps with mud by pressing mud into the cracks using your putty knife. Do this all around. Make sure there is a 4” trail of mud (drywall compound) covering all the cracks. Now place your paper tape strips on two sides. Add a little bit of mud over the tiny bits where the next 2 strips will overlap the first two. Remember that any tape not having mud behind it will bubble when you put mud over it, so this step is crucial and the rest of the work depends on this step being done properly. After having placed each strip of tape you have to slide your putty knife over it, removing some but not all of the mud from beneath it and around it. Take out too much from beneath it and it will bubble. We recommend paper tape as it is the easiest to work with and does the best job. There certainly are other alternatives. We use them all. Allow this tape and mud to harden. It is possible to coat right away, but if this is your first time, it is easu to mess up your work with the trowel if it isn’t dry and hard yet.

8. Apply your 3-4 coats of mud

Yes! 3-4 coats. No, you don’t sand between each coat. Wait for each coat to harden. Once hard, pull the hard edge of your trowel over the lines in your mud. Simple scrape them off. Remember that you’ll be place several more coats over this, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. Scrape the hard lines out and apply you thin coats. Make sure to taper thee edge out very gradually. If it’s a hard taper, you will see this patch once painted. Your taper (not tape) should be at least 3 to 4 inches wide, at least. We know, it’s hard to do. This is probably the toughest part.

9. Sanding

We highly recommend buying a quality particulate filtering mask. A quality P100 HEPA mask will run you $40. Silica dust is not good for your lungs. Now, buy a sanding block from Home Depot, Rona, Lowes or Home Hardware as it will place your hand in the right position for sanding. Using simple paper and your hand will not give you good grip or a nice finish and will likely aggravate your wrist. Sand lightly. If you have a slightly used block, use that as it will not have as tough of a grit. You may have to sand a little bit more but you’ll end up with a smoother finish. Us

10. Clean up

Dry wipe the patch and surrounding wall. Get rid of all unneeded tools in the area. Clean all surfaces in the home. This will likely need to be repeated 3 more times as drywall dust continues to set. Depending on how much dust you created, consider getting your ducts cleaned. Do not get rid of your floor protection in this step.

11. Primer

We recommend using a high quality sealer such as Killz. Kills is very thick and will conceal some* of your mudding deficiencies.

12. Paint

If you have some matching paint under the stairs, you can apply this to your wall. If you don’t, you can take a paint chip from the wall by ripping off a piece of the drywall surface paper which has the paint on it. A notice was given in step 2, to come here and see if you needed to grab a paint chip. With this paint chip you can go to a paint specific store and they will match it to the closest variant. It’s important to remember that while paint colour can be matched, age cannot. So now you have a decision to make. Do you paint the patch or the whole wall. We recommend painting the patch. See how you feel. If the match isn’t close enough, you can paint the whole wall. You don’t necessarily have to paint the full room, just the wall from one corner to the other. Even if the walls don’t match perfectly, it’s ok. We are naturally inclined to believe that a slight mismatch between two walls of extremely similar colour is a play of light. In fact, it often is. Depending on where the light shines in the room, 2 identical walls can appear to be different colours.

13. Clean up

You’re now clear to remove your floor coverings and move furniture back to its place. You may decide to wait until the paint is completely dry in case you are unhappy with your result.

That’s it, you’ve done it! And if you haven’t, call us!