Repairing Damaged Drywall

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If your walls are new and leveled, your wall corners are square, and your house is not covered in wall paper…you are missing out on the true New England homeownership experience.  Here, houses are older, and wonderfully imperfect.  Except when it comes time to renovate. 

I went into our small bathroom renovation thinking, how much trouble could I get into with a 3×5 foot space?

The answer: a moderate amount of trouble.

What I thought was going to be a simple wall paper removal project turned into an annoying discovery. Which resulted in me tearing out a thin piece of particle board that had wallpaper on one side, and glue on the other.  

Who thought of this?  I have no clue, but I can say this: it was a ridiculous idea.

Before reading this tutorial, check out what our pink bathroom looked like here!

After removing the panels, I was left with severely damaged drywall.  Like 100 times worse than your standard wallpaper removal project.  Thankfully it was repairable, but not as easy as just one skim coat like our upstairs attic remodel.

In an effort to avoid completely replacing it, I decided I would try to repair it.  I scoured the internet looking for directions and found a lot of mixed ideas about how to proceed. One thing that most people seem to agree on is that you need to take these steps:

• seal the paper
• skim coat
• sand
• skim coat
• sand
• skim coat
• sand
• And then you are ready for paint!

Here is what I started with (warning: it is not pretty!):

Materials List

Sealer RX-35

All Purpose Joint Compound

14-Inch Stainless Steel Taping Knife

14-Inch Plastic Mud Pan

Chemical Goggles

Dust Mask

Sanding Sponges

Paint & Primer

Step 1: Prepare The Damaged Drywall Paper

Before you seal the walls, it is important that you try to pull off any loose paper as this will help prevent bubbling.  Here is what it looked like after I spent a few minutes peeling paper.  On the day I decided to do this it was 100 degrees in our house so I quickly decided that I did not really want to peel the extra paper….so I gave up.

Step Two: Seal The Damaged Drywall Paper

In order to seal the paper, I ended up going with a product called RX-35There are others on the market, but this product has great reviews and is made specifically for sealing torn drywall. It goes on easy with a 1/2 inch nap roller, and has a milky consistency. (Tip: Make sure you put down a drop cloth, it drips a lot!)

Before starting this project make sure you run out and get yourself some full coverage chemical goggles and a mask.  It is dusty!  As you can see, I splurged for the best quality mask…..my tank top.

For real though, go get an N95 mask!  You don’t want to be breathing any of this stuff in.

I gave the sealer 24 hours to dry before I started with the skim coat process.

Step Three: Skim Coat and Sand…..Forever

Once again, there is mixed information out there regarding how to skim coat walls. I chose to mix an All Purpose Joint Compoundwith a small amount of water so it retained some of its thickness.  

After doing this process several times, I found that a thicker consistency is just my personal preference. It adds a bit to the sanding step, but I like working with the thicker compound compared to a soupy one.  This is your call!  

To mix: scoop the joint compound into your mud pan and slowly add a tablespoon of water until it reaches the desired consistency.  If it becomes too watery, slowly add joint compound to fix.

Using a 12-inch or 14-Inch Taping Knife, put about a 1/2 inch of the mixture on the edge.  Spread the mixture in a thin layer across the walls.  I found it helpful to go in a variety of directions before smoothing it in horizontal strips.  This ensures that you get it into any small crevices.

Note: Try not to focus too much on getting it perfect, if you go over it too many times it starts to get a little tacky.  

Every few passes be sure to wipe off the excess mixture into your 14-Inch Plastic Mud Pan.

The 1st coat looked semi promising, don’t worry too much if you don’t fill every crevice, there are at least two more coats that can take care of it.

I waited 24 hours before sanding, and used a hand-held sanding sponge. I prefer these to the paper, and they seem to work better with the skim coats. Just make sure you get yourself a pair of chemical goggles and a mask.  It gets messy real quick!

Sanding goes quick in a small space, and then you are ready for your second skim coat.  Repeat the same step, and 24 hours later you will be ready for your third coat.

Here is how the 2nd coat looked:

By coat 3, I was fully confident that this process would work!

Since my walls were so severely damaged, I did a 4th coat:

Step Four: Prime and Paint The Repaired Drywall

Choose an all purpose primer, and your favorite paint, and go to town!  The joint compound does absorb paint so it may take a few coats to fully cover. A good quality primer will help with this!

Here is what our walls looked like once I got primer and paint on them, almost entirely smooth!:

This process took quite a few steps, but we finally have nice smooth walls and have not noticed any bubbling!  It is truly a miracle!

Can you even believe these are even the same walls?!

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