Plaster and drywall repairs. Wonder if I can teach myself.

[Anonymous]

Following plumbing repairs in our old rowhouse there are several square feet of holes in walls made of either drywall or lath/metal screen plaster. Before I get estimates I was thinking, is this something I can teach myself to do? I can follow directions and am pretty handy with plumbing, electrical, etc. but am kind of lazy. Could use the saved $$ though. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

small holes are easy to patch. Once you get to square feet, it becomes harder to get a smooth surface.

[Anonymous]

If there are holes in plaster you can patch with drywall. Easier and neater and not too difficult. Watch YouTube videos.

[Anonymous]

Home Depot has free drywall workshops, and free workshops on quite a few other topics. That might be a good place to start.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on the size- I had insulation added to knee walls resulting in 3 medium sized holes in the drywal (~ 15 x 22 inches) and started to do this myself, but have decided to have a contractor/handyperson finish --the sanding and cleaning up after the sanding is a PITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there are holes in plaster you can patch with drywall. Easier and neater and not too difficult. Watch YouTube videos.

THAT is smart. Why didn't I think of that?

[Anonymous]

Patch it with drywall and use the wet sponge method of sanding. You can do this yourself for very little money.

[Anonymous]

Easy. Just get a piece of drywall, even if it was plaster, put it in secure, coat with dry wall compound - works better than sparkle, sand and paint. Use the mesh tape if you want. We sometimes do, sometimes not.

[Anonymous]

MY DH is a huge advocate of Youtube for home repair instruction. He's somewhat handy and we have books but there's nothing like the videos. He just did a bunch of patching in our house and watch youtube to get the technique right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MY DH is a huge advocate of Youtube for home repair instruction. He's somewhat handy and we have books but there's nothing like the videos. He just did a bunch of patching in our house and watch youtube to get the technique right.

My DH does the same thing. I can't recall if he took the drywall class at HD 15 years ago when he learned to drywall (after he stepped through the floor in the attic, thus putting a big hole in the bedroom ceiling).

He just Youtube'd himself into resealing our deck and fixing our circuit breaker.