Virginia Home Repair specializes in drywall repair.

Doorknobs are notorious for punching holes in drywall and we’ve all experienced moving furniture and damaging a wall. Unfortunately, even a small hole in your wall surfaces can make a room look unsightly.

While drywall and plaster repair require special techniques, here are some ways you can patch a small hole in your wall without requiring power tools. As a bonus, we’ll even show you how to make a textured finish using a stiff brush instead of a spray hopper.

The California Patch: A Simple Fix for Small Drywall Holes

The California Patch is a drywall repair technique that is perfect when you’re fixing areas 6 inches square or smaller. It doesn’t require any backing (also called cladding), which makes it both simpler and cheaper than some other techniques.

Start by cutting out a square of drywall that is a couple inches bigger than the hole you want to patch. On the front face of the drywall patch, leave an extra inch of paper extending past each edge of the drywall square. Hold your patch against the wall over the hole you’re fixing and trace around it with a pencil.

Next, use a drywall saw to cut a matching square out of the wall where the original hole was, using the pencil marks as a guide. To make this easier, you can start the cut inside the existing hole. When you’re done, the drywall square should fit exactly into the hole, with the extra paper spreading out to overlap the wall.

Apply a thin layer of joint compound to the inner face of the paper to help it stick to the wall, then insert your drywall patch into the hole in the wall and plaster over it with a thin, smooth layer of joint compound. Once the compound is dry, sand it smooth until the surface blends seamlessly with the rest of the wall.

Creating a Textured Surface With Simple Household Objects

The California Patch technique is fine if your wall is smooth, but what if you’re repairing a textured surface? Professional contractors generally use a tool called a spray hopper to create textures like a spatter, orange peel or knockdown finish. If you don’t happen to have a spray hopper around the house, you can create a similar effect using a stiff brush. A large, stiff-bristled rectangular brush, like a shoe brush, works best.

Dilute four parts joint compound with one part water. Dip the brush bristles into the mixture and allow any excess to drip off. Hold the brush horizontally, bristles up, about 10 inches from the patch of wall you want to texture. Drag your fingers along the bristles to spatter the mixture against the wall.

To create a spatter finish, use quick, short sprays to pepper the wall with lots of smaller droplets of compound. For an orange peel finish, use the same technique but keep going until the whole area is covered in a few layers of small droplets. To make a dropdown texture, use spray more slowly to create bigger droplets. After you have sprayed the whole area with compound, run a putty knife lightly over the area to smooth out the texture. Once the area is dry, sand the edges and proceed to paint it so it matches the rest of the wall.

Repairing drywall or plaster requires some technique and experience to match the repair to the existing finish. If you are not ready to tackle this type of repair, consider hiring a professional repair company, like Virginia Home Repair.  You will be glad you did.

Virginia Home Repair specializes in dry wall and plaster repair.  We can make your wall look like nothing ever happened.