How to Patch Up That Hole in the Wall from Moving Furniture
How to patch a hole in the wall after the furniture wins
Everybody who has ever shifted a lounge through a doorway knows the noise, and the damage is nearly always worse to look at than it is to fix, because plasterboard is one of the few things in a house that a complete beginner can genuinely repair well on the first go. What decides how you tackle it is the size of the hole, so start there rather than reaching for whatever tub is already in the shed.
Work out which of the three you've got
A dent or a scuff where the paper is bruised but not broken is the easy one, and it takes filler and a sand and nothing else. A hole up to about the size of a 50c piece, where the paper is punched through but the plasterboard around it is sound, needs filler built up in layers rather than one thick go. Anything bigger than your fist, or anywhere the board has crumbled back behind the hole, needs something solid bridging the gap before filler goes anywhere near it.
Prep decides how good it looks, not the filler
Cut away any loose paper and any crumbling edges with a sharp blade, so you're left with a clean firm edge all the way round, because filler bonded to a torn flap of paper will lift the moment the paint dries and pulls on it. Brush the dust out of the hole properly. Dust is the reason a repair cracks around its edges months later, and it's the step almost everyone skips.
Fill it in thin coats and let each one go off
Press the filler in firmly with a flexible blade so it packs the hole rather than bridging it, then scrape it back flush and leave it alone. Most fillers shrink a bit as they dry, so plan on 2 coats and sometimes 3, and build the last one slightly proud of the wall so you have something to sand back to flat. Rushing a thick single coat is how you end up with a shrunken dish you can see from the doorway at the wrong time of day.
Sand it flat, then check it with your hand
Use a sanding block rather than folded paper, start with 80 grit to knock the high spots off, then finish with something finer so you're not leaving scratches for the paint to show off. Your eye will lie to you on a white wall and your hand won't, so close your eyes and run your fingers over it, because if you can feel the edge you'll see it once the light is on it.
Prime the patch before you paint it
Filler's far more porous than the wall around it, and if you paint straight over it the patch sucks the paint in and dries duller than everything else, which is that flat halo you see on other people's repairs. A coat of primer or sealer over the filled area evens it out, and it costs about 5 minutes.
The honest bit about the paint
If you've still got the original tin, you're laughing, and you can touch it in with a small brush. If you haven't, a touch-up will almost never disappear, because paint fades on the wall and the sheen level changes as it ages, so the usual answer is to repaint the whole wall from one corner to the next and let the join happen where the wall does. We mix and tint Haymes and Taubmans to order in the shop from the range we stock, so bring in the name of the colour if you know it and we'll talk you through it.
Shop related products
- GSA fast filler 180g. A small tub for dents and nail holes.
- GSA builders filler 1kg. The one for a wall that has copped a few.
- GSA powder filler 454g. Mix what you need, keep the rest.
- Medium sanding block. Keeps the patch flat instead of dished.
- Uni-Pro aluminium oxide sandpaper roll, 80 grit. For knocking the first high spots off.
Did you know we also stock Phoenix self adhesive wall patches in 10cm and 150cm, Uni-Pro flexible filling blades and Uni-Pro interior filler in the shop, and they're not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.
The rest of it sits in paint and accessories, and the paint mixing page covers how the tinting works.
Keep reading
- What tools you actually need for flat-pack furniture
- Hidden storage ideas for small homes and units
- The skills worth learning when you first own a home
Nobody's first patch is invisible, and the second one usually is, so have a go at the dent behind the door before you practise on the wall everybody looks at.
Cheers,
Candeece
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