Well, we had to fix it. It's not as easy as you might think... To start with, it seems impossible nowadays to find materials for fixing plaster walls! I guess everybody's doing drywalls, but what about the old houses?
We had to go to a specialty building materials store (A&H building materials), and they gave us instructions and patching material, and also a sheet of drywall for only $2.00 (it was damaged, but good enough for us).
First, we had to straighten the holes in the wall, so that the pieces of drywall can fit. We did that with a drywall saw. There were also pieces of metal lath in the corners that we had to remove or push in so they won't stick out of the plaster. Then we cut the drywall to pieces of the right size. We attached the drywall pieces to the studs with drywall screws, and drilled holes in them so that the plaster will have something to hold on to.
That's what we did last Saturday:
On Sunday we had to apply the plaster. We knew it dries quickly - the instructions said to only mix enough material for what we can use in 15-20 minutes.
But by the time Mark spread about a square foot of plaster - about 10 minutes - it was already starting to harden. It dried up even quicker that the instructions said!
We had to throw away a bunch of hard plaster and work with smaller batches. That was very tiresome, because we had to wash the bucket well before mixing the next batch.
Anyway, after many hours of mixing and cleaning, we finished the holes in both closets.
This is the bedroom closet.
The next day we sanded the plaster. Not surprisingly*, Mark did a much better job than me, both at applying the plaster and sanding it. He worked on the bedroom closet, I did the reading/hobby room closet.
Here's the hobby room closet after priming:
It doesn't look too bad here, but if you look up close you can see bumps.
Finally, the walls were painted. This is the hobby room closet, painted white (blame the lighting for making it look like it's yellow)
Not bad for a couple of inexperienced homeowners, is it?
Of course, only time will tell if we did a good job or not. Hopefully this will keep for a while!
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* Not surprisingly because Mark is a perfectionist and I'm not.
Brilliant. I was wondering how you'd fix that. From the photo, one can not tell the wall ever had any work done, let alone huge holes ripped in it!
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