Repair Drywall in 14 Minutes
Drywall is as basic as basic gets! If your house was built in the past 100 years, odds are your walls and ceilings are covered with drywall (also known as plasterboard, wallboard, or gypsum board). I was fortunate to have a handy uncle teach me how to work with drywall, but I'm guessing you're reading this because you're not that lucky! Well, assuming that's the case, this video will show you how to repair drywall in 14 minutes of work.
Full disclosure… please don't flame me for this statement… it's 14 minutes of work over five days. Unfortunately, I haven't found an atomic flamethrower that will cure joint compound in seconds. So I do it the old fashioned way: a layer at a time over several days.
Prep Work
My home was built with an intercom system that included a huge base unit with an AM/FM radio and a cassette player! Fancy, I know. Believe it or not, this was a high-tech upgrade when the house was built in 1971. This was one of the remaining smaller remote units in a bedroom that I wanted to remodel. So I created the “hole” by removing the intercom.
I measured the hole and cut a piece of drywall to fit. I also cut a couple of 1×2 pine boards to attach the patch. I started the clock when I returned to the room to actually start the repair.
Beat the Clock
Not really; I didn't rush. Seriously. I didn't come up with the concept of timing the repair until after the footage was recorded.
It's really a simple process: install the patch piece of drywall, prep the joints with fiberglass joint tape, apply 3-4 coats of joint compound, sand it smooth, and paint. The joint compound (aka “mud”) needs to dry thoroughly between coats. It's better to do an extra coat or two rather than putting it on too thick.
This repair is fairly easy because it's a flat surface. Corners, edges, and curves are much more difficult. I'll cover those topics in another video someday.
Tools used on this Project
