Patching Drywall

Back again on the great Laundry Overhaul.  (For the third time.)  Yesterday I told you how I turned this hot mess of a laundry shoot:

 Into this:

But the laundry shoot wasn't the only thing that was wrong with the room.  I also had a lot of clean up to do from the old laundry catch solution that Bath Crashers installed, and the shelving that would now need to be adjusted.

The walls were in really bad shape.  Good thing I had lots of left over joint compound that Bath Crashers left behind.

So I started by troweling on patch over all the holes.  You don't need to buy joint compound to do this in your home, as it usually only comes in large quantities.  They sell smaller containers of drywall patch that do the trick, but this stuff was free, and you know how I feel about that.

I came back the next day and sanded it all down with a drywall sander.  It's pretty much a paddle that you can attach a special screen to.  Careful- the sanding step is really messy.  I chose to use an old sheet to catch the dust.  You may call it cheap (I didn't have any drop cloths on hand or want to purchase more) but I call it being green (I just tossed the sheet in the washer versus throwing it away.)  Thankyouverymuch.

But my holes in the drywall were much worse than 1 coat of joint compound could handle.   As you can see below that I still had bumps.

My best advise when patching drywall is take your time and do multiple coats to make sure your surface is smooth and even.  Take extra time when sanding to make sure your patch is absolutely smooth with no lines or bumps.  If it looks even a little flawed, it will look 100 times worse once you apply paint, and then it will take you a lot more time to fix it, since you'll have to patch all over again.  Slow and steady wins the race.  (Yep, Mrs. Impatient just said that.  I'm learning.)

The next super important step to patching drywall is to always prime your patch before you paint it.  Even if you use the same paint, or paint the entire room again, these patches will still be noticeable if you don't prime them first because the texture of the wall is different.

 

Once the primer was dry I touched up with my paint, and waited a full 24 hours for it to dry before I was onto the shelving.  Since I've put up these shelves two times already, I've tried just about every wall anchor imaginable. Ideally, I'd love to put these directly into studs, but they are located in some really strange places in this room, and it would have made my shelves look off centered.  Most of the wall anchors I tried failed under the heavy weight of this shelf, and it's contents.  The best solution by far were these toggle bolt anchors.

You just drill a 3/8" hole into the drywall with a bit, fold the anchors together to push them into the drywall, and once they are back behind the drywall they spring open and provide a nice wide anchor on the other side.  They can be a little tricky since you have to pull out on them as you are screwing in so that they will tighten, but I found that if I just tightened each screw a little bit alternatively, instead of screwing in one screw all the way first, I could pull gently on my bracket while drilling.  It worked like a charm.

Ready for the grand finale?  Here she blows:

As a reminder, here's the before:

And the after:

 Don't worry, I have a plan for those ugly plugs just above the washer and dryer.  And yes, the laundry shoot catch basket is a bit big, but I'm working with what I have for right now until we find a better option.  Word has it that this week my Ikea wood counter tops will FINALLY come in too, so I'm actually getting pretty excited about this little room as it's getting closer to a finished state.  Almost enough that I can ignore the chaos that is the rest of my house.  Almost.