About Drywall
Repairs
Drywall is soft and easily damaged, and the inevitable settling and shifting of a home causes stress cracks, nail pops and separation along tape joints. Day-to-day living creates digs in the wall, moving pictures leaves nail holes, changing drapery hardware leaves bigger holes. Removing stubborn wallpaper can cause extensive drywall damage. Repairing drywall damage is an unavoidable part of interior painting, but with the right tools and techniques you can do a professional job.
Features
Drywall comes in 4- by 8-foot sheets of varying thicknesses. Paper covers a soft core of gypsum reinforced with fiberglass. Drywall is fastened to the framing studs and joists, then taped and mudded for a smooth appearance. If the walls and ceiling are left smooth, they are sanded flush with a pole sander. If textured, diluted drywall mud is sprayed on, or applied by hand. If the wood used in framing is damp, nail pops appear within months as the wood dries, shrinks and forces the fasteners up. Normal settling of a house can also result in nail pops or stress cracks along the joints.
Minor Repairs
Assess the type of damage that comes up with a repair strategy. Non-shrink spackle is best for nail holes and fairly shallow dings. When shopping, look for the container to say "non-shrink" or "one coat" instead of vinyl spackle, which dries harder but shrinks and usually requires two coats to make a flush repair. Hairline cracks should be widened slightly before repairing, otherwise the crack may reappear within weeks. Use a small screwdriver or the corner of a sharp putty knife to score down the crack. It seems counter-intuitive to make the damage worse before repairing it, but this works. Apply a thin bead of paintable silicone caulking well into the crack, let it dry and spackle it.
Use a flexible fine/medium grit sanding sponge instead of a sheet of sandpaper for sanding all repairs.
Major Repairs
For holes larger than a nail hole and up to 1/2 inch in diameter, count on two coats of spackle, letting it dry in between applications. Larger holes like those caused by a doorknob going through the wall can be quite easily repaired using a metal mesh patch. Don't use spackle for this; use drywall mud (also called joint or topping compound) instead, for easy sanding.
Extensive damage across the entire surface, such as that caused by wallpaper removal, may require thin coats of mud applied with a 9" or 12" drywall knife. Very large areas of damage need to be cut out of the wall, exposing studs or joists, and replaced with new drywall cut to size. Tape the seams with drywall tape and apply two or three coats of mud.
Matching a textured wall is easy with texture patch available in spray cans. These can match spatter textures of different sizes, or skimmed with a drywall knife after application to match knockdown texture.
Prevention/Solution
Minimize or prevent drywall damage around the home. Use baseboard or hinge-mounted door stops to prevent door handles banging holes in the drywall. Clear or colored vinyl protectors can be glued or tacked on to outer corners to prevent dings and chips. Installing chair railing will save walls from being banged when dining room chairs are pushed back, and pre-painted wainscot paneling is a low-maintenance, attractive solution in high-traffic hallways.
There are ways to minimize the appearance of wall dings when choosing paint. Minor damage will be less apparent on faux painted walls, and faux paint can be easier to touch up than a solid color. Deep colors are popular, but even minor drywall damage will be glaringly obvious as the white gypsum shows through.
Expert Insight.
Consider these tips when painting over the finished drywall repair. It's best to prime larger patches with drywall or PVA primer. Smaller patches can be succesfully painted over with two coats of your finish paint. When choosing paint for the whole room, bear in mind that the glossier the paint finish, the more surface irregularities will show. Low or eggshell sheen usually provides a good compromise between appearance and washability. There are also tough, scrubbable matte (flat) finishes on the market now that will protect your walls and be easier to touch up.
For partial repainting, unless you have some of the existing paint saved, you'll need to either find a perfect match--which is very difficult --or repaint the entire wall in a color and sheen that matches closely.
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