Hot Patch

I am still here...just so busy with so many things, like all of you are!  I feel I wear so many hats and sometimes I have to remove a hat for a while.  I was staying up until 2 or 3 am, night after night, in a big push to finish the living room and I did it - almost!  I still have to prime and paint the spot where the water leak occurred.  Other than that, it is done.  The furniture is back in and I'm ready to shift my attention to painting some of the worn and outdated furniture in my house.  More about that in another post.

Before I tell you about hot patching, I will show you a picture of why you should use the right sized trowel, use lamps that point at the ceiling, and not rush through a mudding job.  Ahem.  Um, yeah, it's a stock photo I found online of someone ELSE that made these errors.  Not me of course.  Ahem.

To use a drywall hot patch, first you have to be sure that the area you are patching has straight and clean lines so that you can cut a piece of drywall in the easiest way to fit the hole.  So take out a knife or razor blade and cut your ceiling or wall, ensuring that you have an easy area to measure and fill with new drywall. 

Measure the area and then make two different marks on the replacement piece of drywall.  Don't forget to measure twice and cut once.  The first mark will be to the dimensions you need to fill the hole, the second mark will be an extra 2 inches on each side of the drywall.  Cut the drywall where the second markings are so you will have a giant piece that won't fit in the hole.

 

Cut the back of the drywall carefully around the first set of markings, gently pulling the excess drywall off of the drywall tape, keeping the drywall tape intact (we had to use a Stanley knife to help with this).  After you do this all around the drywall piece you will have a perfectly sized piece of drywall to fill the hole (if you measured properly), with tape already ready to go!  So much easier than using drywall tape and all of the mudding that goes along with that.  Put the piece into the hole that you need to patch and secure it to the underlying wood with drywall screws.  If you don't have wood to screw it into then you have to add shims...a post for another day.

Then be sure to use a nice lamp that will point at the ceiling or wall that you are repairing, a wide trowel, and take your time to do a nice mudding job so that you don't have to sand it down too much later.  Please take your time - nice clean lines, no excess mud.  It will save you a lot of anger and frustration later on.  Not that I know firsthand, of course.

After you have successfully mudded your patch, you can prime it and paint it.  It should just blend right in with the surrounding wall or ceiling.  I'm not there yet because of a little setback.