Repair Yourself a Wall with Small Cracks or Holes Part 2
Repair Yourself a Wall. Wall sanding and plastering operations are among the activities that can also be performed in simple DIY mode, thus allowing for significant savings in terms of labor and still ensuring a satisfactory result from a structural and aesthetic point of view, without necessarily having to turn to a specialized company.
If the walls on which you are going to operate have holes or lesions, it is necessary to repair all imperfections and anomalies in the masonry, even before proceeding with the other operations of plastering, shaving, and painting.
Essential is the preparation of the materials and tools needed to carry out the repair work on the injured wall.
The materials to be procured are plaster, mortar, and multipurpose stucco, of which packages with minimum reference quantities can be found on the market, depending on the size of the surfaces to be treated.
Among the tools that need to be pulled out of the DIY bag are: the chisel, sandpaper, one or more trowels, and their holders. You will also need to have water on hand for preparing the materials with the proper dilution of the materials.
For mandatory safety purposes, you should take precautions by wearing a dust mask, eye protection goggles, and specific gloves to adequately protect your hands.
Preparing stucco for wall treatment
If you are practical enough as well as willing, you will also be able to prepare the stucco yourself: the most commonly used mixture generally consists of cement, sand, hydrated lime, and water.
Certainly, there can be a variety of ways to mix these ingredients.
On average, you can get a good result by mixing cement, sand, and lime and adding lots of water to the mixture until it reaches a fairly creamy consistency so that it can be easily applied to the wall.
A little mortar color can also be added to the grout to achieve an almost aged effect, making it blend more naturally with the shade of the wall to be repaired, so that any subsequent wall painting can be made easier and faster.
Practical trays, suitable for packing and working with stucco, can also be made, preferably using marine plywood at least ½ centimeter thick: a 30-cm square is cut, with a protruding handle on one side, or with a thumb hole, for proper horizontal grip of the stucco tray.
If only a small portion of the wall needs to be repaired, the simpler and more affordable alternative of buying premixed plaster directly is preferable: it is available in coarse or fine grain, with the priceless advantage of being immediately ready for use.
How to grout a wall: repair holes and cracks in plaster
If you consider working on a wall inside the house, the masonry will already be finished, for the most part, in plaster with possible painting. The holes or holes present in such a wall, which are not necessarily old, can be of various types and sizes.
Holes or small cracks in walls may have been produced by the removal of pressure nails, wall sconces, lamps or various objects previously hung or attached to the wall. In any case, cleaning of these small lesions in the masonry must be done.
If necessary, before cleaning holes and cracks in the wall, their edges and interior parts can be defined with certainty by removing, with the use of the chisel, any injured or uncertain parts of the wall that might come loose later or during the execution of the work.
By protecting your eyes with the mask and simply but firmly blowing into the hole, or with the help of a small brush, you should be able to clean it of all the dust and debris in it.
At this point, it is necessary to wet the hole with water, to be sprayed with a very ordinary sprayer, taking care to spread it both inside the hole and along its edge for a few centimeters.
Small, deep holes can be filled and reduced by simply inserting bullets of very strong paper or even better cards.
Larger holes, on the other hand, whose surface area exceeds two centimeters, can be filled by using mortar or plaster.
In both eventualities, wall grout is needed to compensate for the surface of the hole; the operation of grouting walls with the proper laying of the grout, is easily done by spreading it with a special trowel.
With a glance, you can determine the minimum amount of wall grout that is needed to level out holes or cracks in the wall, smoothing them out with the surface of the wall itself.
Repairing cracks in walls: grouting and smoothing with mesh
In some cases, when the cracks in the walls are more extensive, it may be necessary to apply a special fiberglass mesh, to be fixed to the wall, to create a supporting aggregate base, which allows a better grip and adhesion of the stucco on the wall.
The mesh can be attached to the wall with the stitch gun or with a specific adhesive, which should be allowed to dry for as long as necessary, even before the grout is applied to the mesh itself.
Using a metal trowel, as I have depicted in the drawing, grout above the surface of the mesh and on the area immediately surrounding it, evenly blending the entire wall.
Depending on the extent of the cracks in the walls to be repaired, two or more coats of wall grout will be required; between coats of grout, the masonry thus treated should be allowed to dry for as long as necessary, even several days, depending on the weather season and ventilation of the interior rooms.
The last layer of stucco should be quite thin, that is, less than half a cm; at this stage, the last coat of stucco will have to be spread so that it blends in with the rest of the wall.
You can mix the grout with more water to make it more liquid. The resulting grout can be brushed on quickly with a common brush or, even better, with a special rough rubber trowel, to be used in circular motions, pressing firmly on the wall, as is highlighted in the drawing.
Specific tools for grouting and shaving interior walls
The sequence of photos shows some specific tools, very useful aids for carrying out proper plastering and shaving walls, to be used depending on the extent and type of work to be carried out on the masonry.
Ausonia brand plastering and wall shaving trowels can be of various morphologies and materials: stainless steel or rigid polyurethane foam, blade-shaped or with rounded edges, depending on the work to be done.
The trowels produced by the Stanley company are made of stainless steel and confirmed in a variety of designs so that they can be precisely adapted to the type of work to be done: the pointed trowel is suitable for grouting in the corners of walls, while the trowel with a wider base is appropriate for spreading grout over large areas.
Some simple DIY repairs can be successfully carried out in living spaces: it will be possible to carry out grouting and subsequent wall painting, to give a renewed look to the rooms, with little expense and without having to resort to particularly invasive interventions.
This is feasible, provided that there is a good level of proven experience and aptitude, always in scrupulous compliance with mandatory regulations concerning safety.
Taking advantage instead, of a professional intervention, it will be possible to have your home designed through the implementation of multiple tailored solutions to customize both interior and exterior environments, enhancing the properties, in a harmonious balance between architectural aesthetics and living functionality.