- 1). Remove breakable items from the room and cover furniture and floors with dropcloths.
- 2). Remove any damaged wallpaper or peeling paint. Apply paint remover and scrape the area clean. Use a spray bottle filled with water to loosen wallpaper, or apply wallpaper remover and scrape until you reach clean drywall or plaster.
- 3). Apply painter's tape to all baseboards, chair rails, window ledges and mantel edges to protect your woodwork from drips.
- 4). Fill any cracks or holes with putty or joint compound. Putty is the consistency of room-temperature cream cheese, while joint compound is usually a little thicker than sour cream. Load your 2-inch-wide knife near the end of the blade. Push the putty into the hole as you scrape across it in a single direction.
- 5). Load a 4-inch-wide putty knife with joint compound. Begin at the top or to the right of a crack or hole and work downward or to the left, scraping across the hole as if buttering a piece of toast. Leave some joint compound on the wall around the hole rather than attempting to scrape away the excess.
- 6). Allow the joint compound or putty to dry until it begins turning white. Wet a large kitchen sponge and wring it almost dry. Wipe the sponge across the filled hole to remove excess joint compound, without removing any from the hole.
- 7). Apply joint tape over any seams between drywall sheets, using joint compound as glue. Wipe with a damp sponge after 30 minutes to remove any excess joint compound and allow to dry overnight. Reapply a coat of joint compound over the tape, feathering the edges as you go and allow to dry overnight again before wiping with a damp sponge.
- 8). Allow all putty to dry for three to five days, depending on humidity. Refill cracks and holes if the putty shrinks, then allow it to dry again.
- 9). Apply a base coat of flat latex or enamel paint, using a cross-hatch or "X" stroke. Cross-hatching ensures the best coverage on damaged surfaces. Allow the paint to dry overnight.
- 10
Apply a second coat of paint using a cross-hatch stroke and allow to dry overnight. Apply a third coat, if needed. - 11
Carefully remove all painter's tape and discard.
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