Last night we patched the holes in the master bedroom wall. I am not completely sure why the holes are there. At first, I thought they were opened up so the valves for the tub could be repaired (the full bath is on the other side of this wall), but I don't think so any more. They really just look like exploratory holes. Maybe a family pet disappeared into the walls and these holes are how the pet was removed. Who knows?
I decided to cut out one big piece of wall instead of patching the four holes separately. This way I could just use one big piece of drywall to make the patch and have even, regular seams to mud and tape. The piece I removed was 40"H x 34"W. I exposed half a stud on the left side and one in the middle which gave me something solid to attach to.
Here I am looking at crud inside the wall. Is it a shoelace? I'm glad we didn't find bones. (There are animal bones in the crawlspace under the house.) My spouse is filling nail holes around the room while I patch the big hole.
I used the old piece of drywall to size the new piece and locate the hole for the electrical outlet box. I used these nice little drywall brackets to attach the top and right side of the new piece to the existing wall. These brackets worked great! The front part of the clip breaks off so nothing shows after the install (except the screw heads, which get mudded).
So far I've only put on two layers of mud (joint compound) and one layer of drywall tape (paper, not the self-adhesive mesh). I don't know if I'll do more. The wall will likely get demolished when we start redoing the electrical. Right now, we're just trying to make a room habitable so we have some place to live. This is also the first time I've worked with drywall other than spackling holes. While this wasn't the best job, I learned a lot and future drywall work will go more easily. For one thing, I don't have to be quite so anal about my cuts and the fit. Mud covers all.
Last night we patched the holes in the master bedroom wall. I am not completely sure why the holes are there. At first, I thought they were opened up so the valves for the tub could be repaired (the full bath is on the other side of this wall), but I don't think so any more. They really just look like exploratory holes. Maybe a family pet disappeared into the walls and these holes are how the pet was removed. Who knows?
I decided to cut out one big piece of wall instead of patching the four holes separately. This way I could just use one big piece of drywall to make the patch and have even, regular seams to mud and tape. The piece I removed was 40"H x 34"W. I exposed half a stud on the left side and one in the middle which gave me something solid to attach to.
Here I am looking at crud inside the wall. Is it a shoelace? I'm glad we didn't find bones. (There are animal bones in the crawlspace under the house.) My spouse is filling nail holes around the room while I patch the big hole.
So far I've only put on two layers of mud (joint compound) and one layer of drywall tape (paper, not the self-adhesive mesh). I don't know if I'll do more. The wall will likely get demolished when we start redoing the electrical. Right now, we're just trying to make a room habitable so we have some place to live. This is also the first time I've worked with drywall other than spackling holes. While this wasn't the best job, I learned a lot and future drywall work will go more easily. For one thing, I don't have to be quite so anal about my cuts and the fit. Mud covers all.
haha MUD!
ReplyDeleteSo, my mom says that it's bad to have the head of the bed on the wall where the bathroom is. Bad feng shui. So we'll have to consider not having the bed were I just patched. Hmmm. Maybe the opposite wall, under a window. Also bad feng shui, but not as bad.
ReplyDeleteAgain, thanks for posting all of this stuff. Not only do we get to keep track of what you're up to, and commiserate, but personally I'm learning some stuff about home repair. Nothing like hearing about someone else's foibles firsthand to help you avoid making the same ones!
ReplyDeleteSo you're providing a fine public service, lad, keep it up.