Hi everyone! It's Jeff with Home Repair Tutor, and today I'm going to share with you how
to patch a drywall ceiling. So this ceiling has gone bad because water
has infiltrated it. I just need to cut out a portion and replace it with a new ½ inch
drywall. If you got a similar problem at your house, then this video's for you. So stay
tuned, I've got some great tips for you. We're going to fix your ceiling.
All right, the first thing that you do is check to see what size drywall you need. Now
typically it's going to be anywhere from a ½ inch to 5/8 of an inch. So what you want
to do is cut a little hole. Take your measuring tape, stick it up through the hole, and just
measure. So once you get your drywall size, you want
to just check by hand to see where does the drywall give in. Now luckily, it's only a
small section of my ceiling. All right, I'm marking it with Xs. So then, what I'm going
to do is go cut a piece of drywall to this depth and width, put it on the ceiling, measure
that out, and then I cut out that section of my ceiling to fit the piece of drywall
that I cut to size. We need to do next is remove either the nails
or the screws from the joist; otherwise, they're going to get in the way of your new drywall.
Now that this space is ready, I pre-drilled—actually I sistered a 2x4 to the joist to give this
new drywall board extra support. But then, what I like to do when I'm all by myself is
pre-drill drywall screws to the corners. And this helps out with the process. Now, so now
that you have jammed the board in place, and then you can secure the screws.
The other thing that you should do is mark on the existing ceiling where the other joists
are, okay? So this helps you screw the additional drywall screws into place.
So now I'm going to show you how I mix up joint compound. So I use Lightweight Setting-Type
Joint Compound Easy Sand 45 primarily because it sets up rock hard and you can sand it within
an hour—or supposedly within 45 minutes, but it depends on the temperature and the
humidity. The first thing that I do is I pour some of
the joint compound into my trough here. All right, and then I add water. The next thing
I do is I use a traditional mixer that you would use to mix up a brownie mix. Nice and
easy here; you don't want to mix them too much because you will get air bubbles in your
joint compound and that will show through on your drywall—bad news. So just mix it
up enough to get a good consistency. Mix it more with your putty knife. Get rid of the
lumps and the air bubbles. Then when you're to the point whereby this barely drops off
or sticks to your putty knife, that's when you know you're done.
With my joint compound mixed up, I'm going to use a 6-inch drywall knife. And what I'm
going to do is put a little bit of joint compound on either side of the joint.
Now as you can see here, this is huge. That gap is way too big. But what're you going
to do, you know? These things happen. DIY isn't absolutely perfect. So what I did is
I cut some regular screen—screen that you'd put on a window screen and this will bridge
the gap perfectly. The reason why I put the joint compound up on the ceiling first is
to get this to stick just long enough that I could reach back, grab my joint compound,
smear it on like so. Then what I like to do is start at the middle, all right, and work
my way to the ends. Though again, the whole objective here is you just smooth out that
screen enough that your second coating is going to look a lot better, all right? So
I'm going to do this on all the seams that need to be covered for this patch in the ceiling.
When you come up against a wall like this, it's a little bit trickier. You'll have to
bend the screening at a 90° angle, okay? But all you do is fold it in half, create
a crease the best that you can, all right? Fit the crease up in the crevice right here
between the ceiling and the wall, start in the center, smooth it to the ends—center,
smooth to the ends; center, smooth to the ends.
Now that the first coat is dry, you can take a 10-inch drywall knife and use that, move
out maybe 1-3 inches from the center, all right? Put more pressure on the outside edge,
okay, 'cause you want a nice tapered look. So start here. Work your way to the end like
that. Go on the other side of your joint and do the same thing, okay? You just keep doing
that on this joint and this joint, and I would even wait to do this second one and this—or
excuse me, this third one—and this fourth one until these two longer joints are completely
dry. All right, if you have any high spots on your
wall or your ceiling—that is you have some chunky drywall joint compound—just knock
it down or scrape it off with a 6-inch knife. The reason you want to do that is because
it'll eliminate extra sanding that you have to do, and you can also get a smoother finish
with the next coat of joint compound. Because this is a ceiling and I need to add a texture
to it 'cause I'm going to go over this whole 3' x 3' section with a 10-inch or 12-inch
knife to create a nice, smooth look. And I'll show you that next.
All right, so here's a 10-inch knife. What I'm going to do is start on this side, all
right? Sometimes, I'm a little bit messy. Hey, I'm not perfect, but I'm just going to
go over this like so, all right? I want a nice, even layer of joint compound on the
ceiling, and I'll smooth it out when I'm done. I'll show you that, all right?
So I do have a lot of groove marks here. What I'm just going to do is this—I'm going to
go from one end to the other with a nice, smooth stroke, okay? All right. Doesn't look
too bad. You're going to be left with a few grooves here that you again can knock down
and sand off smooth. Right, this is the final step in the process
of prepping the ceiling. So what you want to do is, again, knock down any high spots—knock
down any high spots with your joint compound knife. The next thing that you need to do
is to sand down your area. Now you can sanding screens, you can use a
pole sander, or you can do what I'm going to do and use a sanding sponge. Now I like
this because it's a little bit wet, all right, and what it does is it cuts down on the dust
in your room. So if you've got allergies or asthma, this is a great option. Obviously,
you should also be wearing a respirator, but for this, what I'm going to show you is that
you want to sand in circles, okay? And by sanding in circles, what you'll do is taper
in the wall—the existing wall—you have with the joint compound that you applied.
So I'm going to do it on the ceiling here. So you just want to roll lightly, sand in
circles, okay? So... just like this. Nice and easy. So blend in, especially on the edges
here. Blend in, nice and easy, using a circular motion.
Now what I have here is a bucket of water. So if your sanding sponge gets gunked up,
you just dip it in the water, squeeze it out, and have at it again, okay?
There are many different ways to add texture to your ceiling. If you have a small section
of your ceiling that you need to redo like I am, you can simply brush on the joint compound.
You can brush it on or you can roll it on. I'm just going to brush it on. You brush it
on to the whole section, then you can go back over it and create your pattern like I'm doing
here. So you can do it that way or you can roll it on and create your pattern with your
brush. All right, that's how you fix a drywall ceiling.
I hope that this video helped you out. For more tips and tricks on home improvement or
home repair, visit me at HomeRepairTutor.com. When you're there, sign up for the email newsletter
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