The walls in your home that give you a sense of security and your whole life is spent inside the palisade created by these walls. And as far as interiors are concerned, if these walls are well decorated they enhance the decor of your home. And you can even hang your artwork or your family portraits on them. When the time comes to refurbish your home, you cannot forget the walls and so you start by installing the Drywall Repair near me first.
To install drywall is easy, but to tape the joints is one task that needs some practice. Drywall taping should only be done by professionals. As far as purchasing the drywall is concerned it’s not that difficult to figure out how much drywall is needed because all you need to do is calculate the area of square footage of the walls and the ceilings. This however takes some planning if you don’t want to have too many joints in your drywall.
Drywall comes in a variety of sizes 4 X 8, 4 X 10, 4 X 12 feet, to name a few. The usual technique of installation is with the long sides running from the floor to the roof, but at some places it is fine to place them horizontally if you can save a few joints. In some cases, you can get drywall sheets from some building-material stores having widths of 10-feet or even 12-feet. The thickness of the drywalls is 1/2 inch for walls and 5/8 inch for ceilings, however it is advisable to check the local building code requirements before making any purchases.
After you’ve bought all the other requirements like screws, joint compound, and etc. then you can start the actual installation. With the help of an assistant, you begin cutting and installing the panels onto the walls. First, make a pair of T-squares from 2 X 4s which is about an inch longer than the distance from the floor to the roof. The 2 X 4s are to be nailed about 3 feet long to the ends of each longer 2 X 4s so as to form the Ts. If you find this difficult, you can even rent adjustable T-braces from the hardware stores.
Using a sharp cutting tool cut drywall panels along a straight edge carefully. Flip the panel and cut the paper on the other side. Use sandpaper to smooth the edges. Then start installing the drywall panels. The lesser the number of joints in the drywall panels, the better it is. Make sure to prepare cut-outs for electrical outlets like switches and other fixtures on the wall.
The next step are installing the drywall is the taping. First apply a joint compound on the drywall. It is then followed by stripping of the drywall tape after which you apply two very thin coats of joint compound again to achieve good finishing.
If there is a hole in the wall, the best thing to do is to cut out a square the surround the hole and that goes from stud to stud in the walls. This makes repairing very easy as you will just have to replace the panel and then just mud around the edges. The most important thing about mudding is to use fresh mud with a new trowel. Trowels have the tendency to rust, so make sure use a new one so that you don’t get weird lines in the mudding work.
The next most important thing about drywall replacement is to sand the area once it dries. Sanding is the key to a seamless looking drywall repair. The best rule of thumb is to sand, sand again, and then sand the area a third time before re-applying more mud to the area. The key is that you want to not be able to see edges or abrupt rising on the wall where the new piece of drywall was installed. Once you get the area sanded and smooth, the next thing to do is to prime the area. The reason that priming is so important is because drywall mud sucks up paint like crazy.