Fixing a Hole in Your Wall

I live in an apartment in my college town and needless to say we have parties and every once in awhile things do get out of hand and something ends up breaking. Usually it's nothing too big or important, like a crack in a mirror or a broken lamp, something small and insignificant. However, on more than one occasion things did get too out of hand and my apartment ended up with two holes in the wall. Now, I can't make this next part up. The first hole came from when one of my roommates literally drop kicked the wall. No joke. The second hole came when my other roommate was wrestling a girl and she knocked his back side into the hallway wall. So I have two nice big holes in my apartment and if I don't get them fixed, it's a $250 fine. So needless to say, with my experience in construction, not much just two summers working for a school system and one summer building a pool house for my friend, I had to find a way to fix these holes.

Here is how a I fixed my holes, and how you can fix yours.

1. Depending on the size of your hole, cut out a square piece of the wall using a utility knife. Make sure it's a good even size, like 7 inches by 7 inches, or in my case 17 inches by 17 inches.

2. When cutting the hole, make sure you expose about half of the closest stud.

3. Cut a piece of dry wall that will fit in the hole perfectly.

4. Nail the piece to the stud and cover the edges with joint tape and cover the whole piece of dry wall with a joint compound.

5. When it's dry, sand the area and if seems are still visible, re-tape the seems and repeat sanding after drying. It often does take more than one time to keep the seems from showing.

6. If you need to paint the wall, find the exact match of paint at a local store, Sherwin Williams is my favorite.

Now hopefully you don't have the same problem as I did with two holes that were almost too large to work with. However, it is possible that you do and if you honestly can't fix the hole yourself or feel you'll mess it up find someone who can, it's better to be safe than sorry.