So, while we were in the middle of our renovation of the first floor unit, the upstairs neighbor managed to leave their water on or something and it leaked down into our newly renovated bathroom. EEEEKKKK! I had a minor freak out, but luckily it wasn’t a plumbing issue, just a mistake. We already had our plumber there doing work in the downstairs unit when this happened. He went to take a potty break and called me when he saw the water on the floor in the bathroom. So, he checked it out and found that there wasn’t a plumbing issue – someone must have left the sink on or something. :-/
We ended up cutting out the drywall that got damaged and replacing it, then taped and mudded the area. We had to put several layers of mud because this bathroom ceiling was skim coated heavily when we got it renovated. The people who renovated it did such a great job on the ceiling that it was that much more disappointing that it got ruined because we are not expert mudders and tapers.
I have so much more newfound respect for people that do drywall, mudding, and taping for a living. That is a serious skill that not everyone can master. And it’s tedious. If you’ve ever seen me spread jelly or butter on my toast in the morning, you would understand why I’m not so good at it. I am very OCD about evenly spreading butter and jelly on my toast – every part of the bread has to be covered with about the same amount of butter and about the same amount of jelly. And spreading mud on to drywall is just like that for me. So it is extra painful for me to spread the mud on drywall.
And the worst thing about it is that the more OCD or perfectionist that you are, the worse things get. Just when you think you’ll do one more swipe of the putty knife to make it more perfect and more even, you ruin it all and leave a big line in your smooth mud. Really, I think what Hell would look like for me is taping and mudding with Mickey Mouse Club House blaring in the background (this was actually what I had going on the other night). But I guess I shouldn’t give the devil any ideas (too late).
So, what happens when you suck at mudding is that you have to sand like crazy. Sanding is equally as fun as mudding. :-p It’s all a very messy process. It gets in your nose, eyes, hair, everywhere. Imagine going to the beach minus all the fun and you’ve got it.
Here’s the steps we took:
1.) Cut the dry wall to the studs.
2.) Put some fans in the room to dry out the area.
3.) Replace drywall.
4.) Thin layer of mud to fill in the cracks between the new drywall and existing drywall and all around to stick the joint tape to.
5.) Place joint tape (I recommend wetting the joint tape first – it sticks better). I also recommend having all the joint tape cut ahead of time – before making the mud because it dries quickly. Do one strip of joint tape at a time.
6.) Thin layer of mud over the joint tape and also applying some pressure to squeeze the mud from underneath the joint tape out. Do this all around the drywall. We also had some damage on the wall itself so we just mudded that as well to fill in where the previous mud and paint was washed away. We had to peel away some of the paint first (the loose stuff).
7.) Prime and paint the ceiling. We had to paint the entire ceiling because we couldn’t find a matching ceiling paint. Remember that ceiling paint doesn’t include primer in it so it’s important to prime first.
After the drywall was cut out:
Here’s what it looks like after the joint tape is applied and the first layer of mud. The corner is done by folding the joint tape in half and putting it in the corner after you’ve put a thin layer of mud there. They also sell a corner tool at home depot to help with the spreading out of the mud there though I’ve had mixed results with that – very mixed.
After a few layers of mud and sanding:
After about 5 layers of mud and sanding, then priming & painting:
It’s actually not perfect. You can see that it slopes downward where our patch is. But it’s the best we could do. Not too shabby.