Family Life

Well that was kind of fun! The drywall compound (hereafter known as “mud”) came in a big tub. It was the consistency of playdoh, and once I got over my initial timidity I was scooping it out in great gobs.

I cut a section out of a sheet of drywall, and miraculously it almost fit. I’d cut the wall with a circular saw while approximately following a pencil line in dim light, so dimensional tolerances on the hole were pretty loose. When I cut the piece of drywall I wasn’t too concerned about being terribly accurate. After all, the hole was pretty rough so what were the odds I’d be able to match it with the new piece? But it did match. The new piece was a couple of millimeters too tall, and that was fine. I just had to chip away the high points on the top and bottom of the hole, and Ta-da! the new piece fit nice and snug. I had to convince it with a mallet, but that was all the better. Very satisfying once the wall was looking like a wall again, instead of the inside half of a window.

The big problem was that the old wall was quite warped, whereas the new wall was straight. So in places the new wall was sunken, in places it protruded. What’s that verse about sewing new cloth onto old garments?

Hence the need for mud.

Despite the good fit there were still some gaps to fill in (with mud). Then mud, lots of mud, to even out the seams. Then tape over the seams. It seemed kind of pointless in some places, the height difference was so much. Then more mud over the tape.

They say I should leave it to dry 24 hours, and then sand and see if I need to add a second coat. I may need to leave it longer than that, there’s so much mud.

But the hole is plugged. It’s all easy stuff (that is, stuff I’ve done before) from now on. Time-consuming and a little tedious, but not difficult.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 11:05 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.