By Brian (NJ)

So as a first-timer to a hole larger than just a picture holder hole or tack hole, I needed to repair a hole in the hallway- the dreaded doorknob hole (I was locked out & had to kick the door in, so the entire doorknob managed to get through the drywall – lucky me).

Anyway, I bought that 4X4-inch sheet metal patch kit from Lowes and tried it out. I guess I was supposed to use joint compound, but I didn’t. I already had a jar of that really lightweight spackling paste; I used that instead of joint compound (what the heck’s the difference anyway?). Aside from just slapping the sheet metal piece over the hole & spackling away, I thought I’d get more creative. Since I’m a bit anal-retentive and strongly dislike the lacy very visible-over-smoothed parts & high-spots that these patches always seem to yield, I had to try something.

What I did was remove the “paper” that makes up the exterior of the drywall (in essence, the cardboard/paper that covers the chalk). This paper -as it turns out- is about the same thickness as the thin sheet metal patch that I bought. SO I matched the size of the sheet metal and cut that exact size of paper away from the wall with a razor blade. I then stuck my sheet metal in place & voila!…even after spackling & sanding, there are no high-spots. You can’t really tell that anything was done, since I didn’t just as 1/16″ to the wall.

Maybe I got lucky with having used the spackling paste instead of joint compound, but everything looks great!