Basic Drywall Repair; Wall Preparation
So this is actually step two of getting my garage organized. Drywall repair preparation was really key since I want to paint my entire garage, and decided to work just one wall at a time. My garage has really become a disaster area since we moved in for a lot of reasons, simple disorganization being the primary one. You can check out my garage mess and hear me talk about goals I have for my garage by starting with the first article on organizing my garage and to see where I’m starting from.
Read on to get some help with drywall repair all the way from minor gouges in the drywall to big holes…
In one corner of my garage, near the overhead door, there was some obvious condensation which penetrated the drywall mud since parts of the garage were never painted.I know from past mistakes that after taping and bedding a garage, you really have to paint it to seal in the work from the elements. Garages are not typically air conditioned which means humidity will ruin your drywall work. I once did a garage ceiling but the owner never asked for it to be painted. Three years later I found out that the bedding had nearly all fallen onto his garage floor. Lesson: drywall repair in a garage will become pointless within about 3 or 4 years without painting it…at least here in Texas.
There were also some leftover holes from what I assume were shelves at one time. There was also a hole my electrician cut to run a dedicated line to our convection oven. At any rate, drywall repair techniques vary according to the size of the problem. I’ll be sharing each one in part two.
Cleaning The Wall Before Starting
My air compressor came in really handy where the old paint was peeled and cracking. I blew away the problem paint and cracked drywall mud in a matter of seconds without any scraping. It helped some with the cob webs up near the ceiling too, but a broom really finished that off. Some of the holes that were larger than about the size of a quarter needed to be supported from behind. Screwing a 1X2 piece of scrap trim behind the hole gives the patch something to hang on to.
One wall – initial preparation Time: about 30 minutes.
Next Goal: Repair the wall and paint it. Then, move more stuff against that wall and clear the adjacent wall, which happens to have the built in shelves. That will be a pretty good part of my entire garage organization so I’ll be targeting getting the next wall painted along with the built in shelves before I can get the shelves organized, get more stuff cleared and organized and move to the next wall.
