We are almost at the end of our second week of renovations at the Home & Family house. Our family room is looking great! We have moved our window, made room for a fireplace and now we are deciding on a new entertainment center.

Now last week talked insulation. This week I am going to talk all things drywall.  I am really excited about teaching people to drywall (or fix their drywall) because it is so easy!  Ladies, if you have every frosted a cake, you can do this!  And what is the worst that can happen?  What would happen if you messed up frosting your cake?  End of the world?  NO!  You’d just re-do it.  Same with drywall.  If you mess up, sand it down and do it again.  Once you get the hang of it, you will be unstoppable to all those holes, knicks and marks on your wall.  Fixed!  And so easy to do!

Through the years, we’ve put up so many paintings and decorations around the Home and Family house, because of this we need to learn how to patch the drywall. This is a great place to start. Holes in drywall is one of the most common problems in the house, and luckily it’s an easy one to fix!

Sometimes we’ll have little holes, like when we take out screws or nails. You can see too, when you screw into the drywall they pull out even more of the wall.  For a smaller hole like this, we need to sand down that little piece of wall first before we add the spackle.

For holes that are just slightly bigger, maybe a door knob hit the wall or  your furniture nicked it…. You’ll need to add a little bit of reinforcement. You can buy a little kit from your local hardware store that comes with all the things you need. First, you spread a little spackle onto the mesh and place it over the large hole. Then, take the rest of your spackle and spread it over the wall, trying to keep it as smooth as possible. Once this is dry, lightly sand it and repaint it. It’ll be good as new!

Sometimes, when you’re dealing with a patch larger than 6 inches. You’re going to need a stronger solution than just the mesh. This is when you would replace the entire drywall. But don’t let that scare you! It is not hard to fix.

First, what you’ll need to do is cut out a piece of drywall bigger than your damage. Then hold the drywall up against the damage and mark the wall in pencil and cut out the damaged piece. Once you do that, you’ll have a square hole, and the square drywall to put into it. Drill this piece into our studs. Once this is in place, you use drywall tape to bridge the gap between the two pieces. Then, spackle!  Spackling could also be called “drywall mud, joint compound, etc.”.  Spackling is a lot like frosting a cake! It’s quite therapeutic.

Typically, drywall mud takes about 24 hours to dry.  Allow this to dry and then sand the area lightly. If the wall is still not flat or completely fixed, you can add another coat of drywall mud and repeat the process.  Once you are happy with your work, paint it to look good as new! For more home improvement tips, check out the official statement from your local home improvement experts or visit their website.

It really is that simple! If you feel like you need to see it to believe it … head on over to Home & Family and catch the episode.

Make sure you enter our Spring Fever competition where you could win $50,000 towards your own home renovation! How amazing is that? Details on how to enter can be found at Home & Family.

XOXO,

Paige