Minor drywall repair is a great skill for any homeowner to have, especially homeowners with children! In this article from professional drywall installer Benny Jenson of Milwaukee, WI we detail the techniques the pros use to repair drywall.

Hi guys, my name is Benny and I have been a drywaller for over 13 years. The owners of the Milwaukee Home Improvement Blog have asked me to write an article about minor drywall repair for the visitors of the site. I am by no means a professional writer but I’ll do my best at helping you learn to make minor drywall repairs, so here goes.

So minor drywall damages can be caused by any number of issues, kids roughhousing, door knobs impacting the drywall, people losing there temper. The sizes of these holes vary but the method to repair the damage is the same.

The first thing you want to do is grab yourself a tape measure, straight edge and square. Inspect the damaged area including the back side of the hole (inside the wall) visually. Measure out the damaged area, not just the hole. You don’t have to be extremely precise. When we have our rough estimate of the damaged area we want to add an inch or two to our measurement to ensure that were covering the entire damaged area.

Now we want to draw out a rectangle or square around our damaged area in pencil using a square and straight edge, roughly centering the damaged area in the rectangle. Next you want to use a utility knife to cut along the lines we just made. Take your time and don’t cut yourself, score the area first then get more aggressive after you have a rut.

We now have a clean and squared rectangle in the drywall to work with. The next thing we want to do is add support for what will be our drywall patch. We want to take a piece of scrap wood (2×4 or whatever you have hiding in your garage) and cut it 4 inches longer than our rectangle. Now attach this piece of wood inside the hole with 4 drywall screws. See the below Image if this is getting a little confusion. If the hole is very large you may want to use more than one brace, use common sense.

drywall repair bracing milwaukee

Wood Bracing

So, now that our support is in place we want to cut a piece of drywall to the size of our cutout. Install the newly cut drywall into out cutout, the drywall piece just fit into our cutout. Attach the piece with drywall screws, screwing them into our supports. Again use common sense, using enough screws to firmly secure our patch.

Now we want to use spread joint compound over the seams and screw heads. Then use drywall tape to tape over the seams and use a joint knife to press the tape into the joint compound. Before the compound sets add a second thin layer of joint compound spreading across the entire repair area. Don’t over do it, what we are looking for is a thin layer that is flush with the existing wall. Allow the area to dry completely, drying times vary so read the directions.

The area should now be dry and we can proceed to lightly sand the area. Sand the area so it’s completely flat and smooth. Visually inspect the area for and non flat surfaces, if there are apply another thin layer, let dry and sand.

Now that we have a completely flat and smooth area you want to apply a layer of drywall texture, several ways of doing this but the easiest for a homeowner would probably be the aerosol spray on type. Apply the texture per the directions and allow to dry. When the area is dry go ahead and paint the area with drywall primer. Once the primer is dry you can repaint the area with a paint matching the room.

My very last tip is about the paint, if you don’t have the original paint take a bit of your damaged area to the local hardware/paint store. Now a days many of these stores have computers that can analyze a sample and return a perfect match.

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