When we had ceiling fans installed in one of our units, the electrician had to make holes all over the place in order to run the electrical to the center of the room from an outlet that was on the wall since the units didn’t already have lights in the ceiling. It left a lot of holes! And some pretty big ones at that.
For the smaller holes, we just patched them with some joint compound and joint tape. We used a sticky joint tape since it was on the ceiling and we wanted the tape to stick well and not sag down.
You’ll need these things:
-Joint Compound (get the stuff that dries slow – 90 minute works well)
-Cup of water
-Mixing Trough
-Putty knife
-Joint Tape (sticky if you like)
-Scissors
Ignore any other stuff in the picture.
Make the mud by mixing joint compound and water to a pancake batter consistency:
There were these size holes which were about 2 inches long and an inch wide. For these, we first filled them with mud and let that dry. Then we put another thin layer of mud and put the joint tape on there. You’ll want to make sure the joint tape extends past the hole about an inch on each side. Then, we mudded again a few times – letting dry each time between layers. Finally, sand it smooth, prime, and paint.
These were the other holes we had which have the drywall that was cut out and secured to a stud. We just have to tape and mud around the circle.
This next hole was in the closet and there was nothing to secure the drywall circle to. So, my husband took a piece of baseboard that was slightly larger than the hole by about 2 inches and placed that in the hole cross-wise (using a temporary screw that was drilled partly into the baseboard for grip reasons) then he screwed through the drywall on either side of the hole until the screw caught on the baseboard and pulled it tight. Then, he drilled the cut drywall to the secured baseboard with a screw. Now, we just had to patch the circle around the cut drywall. I wish I had pictures of this process but the pictures didn’t turn out. Here’s the pictures with the joint tape and then the mud. It’s not the finished pictures. I’ll have to post those later.
Hope that helps someone else out there that has to patch up several holes like we did.