Drywall repair in Rowlett, TX that disappears under the paint

Drywall repair in Rowlett, TX, from patch to paint

Most drywall damage is ordinary: a doorknob that went through, a towel bar that pulled out, nail pops, a corner that lost an argument with a couch. Patching the hole is the easy part. Making it disappear is the real job, and that depends as much on the paint as on the mud.

People ask whether painters fix drywall. Some don’t, which leaves you scheduling a drywall person, then a painter, and hoping the second one doesn’t blame the first. I do both, on older plaster walls as well as drywall, so one person is responsible for how the wall looks when it’s done.

The before photo on this page shows a vaulted living-room wall dotted with spackle over several holes and dings. The after photo is the same wall, repainted, and you can’t pick out where the repairs were. Dabbed touch-up paint rarely blends on a big, well-lit wall, so repainting corner to corner is usually what makes repairs vanish.

Drywall texture matching: orange peel, knockdown and smooth

A flat patch on a textured wall stands out almost as much as the hole did. Orange peel is a fine spray of thinned mud that dries into small bumps. Knockdown is a heavier spatter flattened with a wide knife as it starts to set, leaving flat islands. Smooth walls have nothing to hide behind, so a patch has to be feathered wide and sanded until it disappears in sideways light.

A match comes down to the size of the spatter, how thick the mud is and, for knockdown, how long it sits before it’s knocked flat. Test on scrap first, then feather the new texture into the old so there’s no hard edge. Years of paint soften old texture, so fresh texture can look sharper beside it; priming the patch and repainting the whole wall helps even out the difference.

Spray-can texture is fine for a coin-sized spot. On anything bigger it’s hard to control, and a mismatched patch is more work to fix than the original hole was. Walls after wallpaper removal need the same care: torn drywall paper has to be sealed before any mud goes on, or it bubbles, then skimmed and textured to match.

Drywall crack repair and North Texas clay soil

North Texas has a lot of expansive clay. Houston Black clay, a Blackland Prairie soil found from north of Dallas to south of San Antonio, swells when it’s wet and shrinks when it’s dry; when dry, its topsoil can crack more than 4 inches wide. The ASCE Geo-Institute lists possible indoor signs of that movement, including cracks or separations in walls and ceilings, cracks at wall corners, cracks above doors and windows, and doors or windows that stick.

Drought, hot and dry weather, and extra drying on a house’s south and west sides make that movement uneven. That’s why spackle or caulk smeared into a crack rarely lasts. A proper drywall crack repair opens the crack up, tapes it, and builds thin coats of mud feathered out wide, then texture and paint to match.

Here’s where my job stops. A crack that keeps coming back or getting wider is worth having a foundation professional check. I repair drywall; I don’t do foundation work. If foundation repair is on the calendar, have it done first — lifting a slab can open new cracks — and call me for the drywall after.