If you are anything like me, you have managed to put a hole in one of the walls in your home. If you are a very close to being like me, then you have put more than one hole in more than one of your walls. Read between the lines there, it should explain to you why I no longer play video games. As a homeowner, I did a lot of drywall repairs.

Regardless of why your walls have holes in them, most homeowners want to have that hole go away. So what do you do? You have a hole, but how do you repair drywall?

You could call a professional, someone that does home remodeling, or a painter that knows how to patch drywall. You could attempt to patch the hole yourself.

It's alright, you can feel free to gasp at the idea.

I didn't think I could do this at first either. The concept of drywall repair was overwhelming. Turns out it really isn't as hard as you would think it to be. Quite the opposite, it is rather easy to repair drywall holes. Most people will struggle in matching the texture of a wall if they have trouble at all. Think of your wall as 3 parts total. You have the frame, the drywall, and the texture.

Your frame is made out of 2x4 beams called studs. These run all through your home making up your walls and rooms. Even your floors are framed, not for a crime they never committed, but for your support when walking on them. Lame joke, so bill me for it...hah. The drywall, or sheetrock, it measured and cut to fit against the studs. They are then nailed or screwed into the studs. Once mud, not the stuff your kids get into outside, but a joint compound, is applied to the spaces between the drywall. As your home gets older, you will find that your drywall cracks along these spaces. You can perform drywall crack repairs by just adding some spackle to the crack or apply more joint compound. If you want to be really cheap and easy, most small drywall cracks can be filled with a little bit of caulk. Once the joint compound is in place and dry, the popular thing to do is apply a texture to the wall. There are lots of types of texture that can be applied to a wall from crow's foot to splatter to just dragging a wide blade putty knife over the wall.

Helpful hint: if you are patching a wall that has texture on it, make sure to scrape down the texture of the wall around where you are patching. This will make it easier to match the existing type of texture when you complete the patch.

To make a drywall patch, you are just performing the same task as hanging fresh drywall in a room, just on a much smaller scale.

Here are the tools you will need.

• Measuring tape
• Drywall
• Drywall/mud/joint compound(of one sort or another)
• Drywall tape(either paper tape of adhesive fiberglass will do)
• Utility knife
• Drywall screws
• Wooden shims(or paint stick) to act as a joint connection
• Mud knives/putty knives
• Mud tray
• Screwdriver(optional power drill for all you Tim Allen fans out there)
• 5 gallon bucket
• Sandpaper(100 grit is good, you don't want it to be too rough when sanding)

First things first. You look at the hole in your wall and establish dominance. You firmly say, "I will patch you hole."

It works for me at least

Size up the damage. You need to check the depth of the drywall. There are multiple depths ranging ¾ inch and ½ inch. Then you can buy the right sized drywall. It's also a whole lot easier to patch a square or a rectangular hole. If your hole is oddly shaped, for ease, I suggest you take the retractable utility knife and cut the hole to a square. This makes cutting your filler drywall piece significantly easier. It will also make placing your patch easier, it just fits better and you are able to secure the drywall in place firmly. Remember, it doesn't have to be an exact square. Square-ish is just fine. Also, if the hole is near the stud of the wall, say within an inch or two, you want to try to cut back to the middle of the stud. This way you have a steady and secure place to either nail or screw in your patch of sheetrock.

Once you cut the shape, you need to measure the hole. If you want, write in pencil the measurements next to each side that you measured. Don't worry; once you start to apply the joint compound, your writings will disappear. Once you have the measurements, you should cut a piece of drywall to fit. The cut doesn't have to be exact; you can make the new piece smaller than your measurement by a little bit, no more than say an eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch. Otherwise your gap between the old sheetrock and the new sheetrock will be bigger than you want and much harder to fill in with the drywall tape.

So now you have your hole cut, and you have your patch cut. What's next? You need to find a way to fix the patch in place. You can honestly just use a paint stir stick, just cut it in half or in thirds. Place the stick behind one of the sides of the hole and drill a screw through the sheetrock into the paint stick/shim. Repeat this process for the other sides of the hole. If you want to spend the extra money, there are metal clips you can buy at the hardware store. They look like little metal screens with clips on them. They slide onto your drywall and you can drill into the metal screen to hold the drywall in place. Once you drill the patch in place, you break off the little clips. Simple and clean. The paint stick just saves you money.

So now you have these gaps where the new drywall isn't flush to the old drywall. You will take some of the fiber tape of the paper tape and cut it to your desired length, usually the length of the patch. The fiber tape will stick on its own to the wall, if you used the paper tape(which is the less expensive route), you need to use some of your joint compound as an adhesive for the tape.

This brings up an interesting point. The joint compound. I said earlier that there are a few types of compound you can use. They have pre-made mud in a bucket. Essential you can add water to thin it up some of just use it like it is. This is easier, but takes a very long time to dry. Another option is to use quickset mud. You can usually find it at Lowes or Home Depot. Basically its dust in a bag that after mixing it in water will dry in a set time, anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 minutes. This is harder to make since you have to add water and stir it, but easier in that you can usually put the 3 or more coats of joint compound on in one day rather than waiting a whole day to let each coat dry.

If you chose the quickset mud method, be ready. I recommend using a corded power drill, mixing rod, and a 5 gallon bucket. For most average patches, just cover the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket with water and add in the dry compound. Start mixing until you get a good consistency. You will need to add more water or compound as you mix. It shouldn't be very think or very runny. To me it is consistent with clay, if not more liquid than that.

Put the compound in your tray and stick your knife into it, scooping some of the mud out with your knife. Make your first pass at smearing the mud against the wall over the tape. YOUR FIRST COAT IS NOT MEANT TO BE VERY THICK. It needs to be thin. You don't want it cover the tape up completely, just to get a coat of the compound on. You will put multiple "beds" of the mud on. The last beds will have more mud in them, making the tape virtually disappear. Make smooth strokes with your knife. I recommend for this first pass you use a 4 to 6" putty/mud knife. Load it up and smooth the mud over the tape and let it dry. You have to repeat dragging the knife with firm pressure over the area several times, scrapping the excess "mud" off the wall. After each pass you need to make sure that you scrape your blade clean of compound against the edge of your mud tray.

Once your first pass dries out, you can sand down any rigid spots or really rough spots with sandpaper. The next pass is definitely meant for the 6" knife. You will use more mud than the first pass, but still not lumping huge uneven amounts. You want smooth strokes and clean look, no ripples and try avoiding major ridges. Again, repeat your firm pressure making smooth strokes and removing the excess. Again, once dry, sand down ridges and parts that are not smooth.

After this 3^rd coat, you are going to use either an 8" or 12" knife to finish the job. Same process as before, just a bigger blade. Once this dries and you sand the edges smooth, you will be ready to call it quits or add a texture to the wall to match the existing texture of the wall. And that is drywall repair. Enjoy your patching!