In this week's handyman tip, host Paul Ryan will show you a couple of clever tips for drywall repair.
If a door handle or something else damages your drywall, there are a couple of options for repair:
- You can buy a drywall patch (figure A) that has adhesive backing. It sells for approximately $4. Put the patch in place and finish the repair with drywall compound.
- A more elegant way to repair a hole in your drywall is to cut out the damaged area. Use a utility knife to extract a perfect square around the hole, take a new piece of drywall and cut it about an inch bigger than the damaged piece.
Take the damaged piece of drywall, place it on the back of the new piece of drywall and trace it. Score along the line and the tricky part is to cut or break away the excess drywall. Remove one piece at a time, and be careful to leave the paper in tact (figure B).
Before you put the new piece in, take a bit of drywall compound and apply around the edge. Put the drywall into place, drywall the outside edge (figure C), let it dry, sand it, do one more coat of drywall compound, sand it -- and you have a wall that is as good as new!
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