How to Patch Drywall like a girl, Our Freshly Painted Room + $100 to Ace!

Our bedroom is finally painted, and I can't believe I waited so long to do it. (I say that every time.) But before we get into that, let's first address the gorilla-sized hole in the room, seen in the picture below:

See on the wall under the window? Last year, as we were doing the floors, we discovered that some water had been seeping in through our windows during the winter, and that water was turning to mold. Chris pulled this section out to see how bad it was, and thank goodness it didn't require taking down the whole wall. We re-sealed all the windows and had some people look the drywall. Fortunately, we were able to treat it without further deconstruction to our home. BUT, this hole has been there, staring at us, for a year now. This month, Ace Hardware challenged us to take on a home maintenance project and I decided to fix this eye sore once and for all myself (#likeagirl amiright?!) with my camera timer set, while Chris is on the mend. Here's a quick little walk-through:

You can see the hole was an irregular shape. First, you want to square off the area to be patched. Make sure where you cut lands in the center of a stud, so the remaining sheetrock and the new piece each have the stud behind them for support.

Cut a small piece of sheetrock to fit. We picked up a small 2ftx2ft piece of 1/2inch sheetrock from our local Ace for a couple bucks, and it was just perfect.

Screw the sheetrock in, one screw in each corner. If you have a larger piece, you may need to use more screws. Also put a screw into the original sheetrock, just to keep it secured to the stud.

Spread a thin layer of joint compound over the gaps and top with mesh tape. The mesh tape keeps the joint compound from cracking. It's a good thing.

Then add more joint compound and let it dry completely. For this we er on the side of adding too much joint compound, because you're gonna sand it anyway and you want to make sure you have enough so you can sand it flat.

I started sanding it using coarse grit sandpaper, and then worked my way to a fine grit.

Many of you have expressed your wonder and amazement (disgust?) for textured walls. And I get it. I grew up in Pittsburgh where we didn't have textured walls or ceilings and, man, I didn't even know how good we had it. But since moving out west a decade ago, I have yet--YET!--to come across a completely smooth wall and ceiling combination. In our home, our walls have a slight orange peel texture, so the last step is to add some of this:

Once that's dried, prime and paint.

Of course we still need to install baseboards here to really make everything appear seamless, but getting that hole patched, however big the job felt for an entire year, was an easy (really easy!) step in the right direction. Another step toward a better room? Our new paint color:

Boom! You saw the paint swatches we narrowed it down between here, and they were all over the map. While they all fit into the mood board we made up for our room, in the end, we decided to do something darker and keep things warm and cozy. Valspar's Flannel Gray from Ace Hardware turned out to be thee perfect choice. It's a warm, dark, slate grayish-blue.

It's going to be a great backdrop for the rest of the plans we have for the space. You can check those out here. Numero uno--new bed linens. Goodness, we've been rocking these for six years and it shows (I know!)

To kick off another great year with Ace Hardware, and three cheers for tying up those home maintenance loose ends!--we're giving away a $100 gift card to Ace! You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget below. Giveaway runs through Wednesday, March 4th. Take luck and Happy Weekend!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We’re excited to be collaborating with Ace Hardware as a part of their Ace Blogger Panel again this year! Ace has provided us with compensation and the materials necessary to complete this project and strive to be as generous with our readers (thanks, Ace!) All opinions are our own.