I am helping a friend replace a small area of drywall that was damaged by rain water. The drywall is up and taped. I just need to match the texture pattern with the rest of the room. It looks like the standard texture you get from using a gun/hopper. However, it seems like they used a trowel or something to flatten the texture once on the wall. I hope this is making sense. Any help with how to match this would be appreciated.

 

Sounds like you are describing a knock down pattern. You can shoot it with a hopper as I have done it many times with good success. You will have to play with the mud thickness, opening size, and how long you let it sit before knocking it down, but just do some test patterns on a scrap piece of drywall to get a good match. If you don't like the test, just scrape it off while it is still wet, make corrections, and retest. I like to use a drywall squeegee to knock it down but if your just doing a small patch you can use a 12" knife.

When your ready to go, spray, wait a little bit (depending on your mud) then lightly drag the squeegee or knife over it to knock it down. You will have to overlap somewhat from old texture to new.

 

Approximately what consistency would you recommend having the mud? And approximately how long should I let it dry before knocking down? Thanks again

 

I recommend practicing on scrap wood or cardboard until you find the right consistency, technique and time frames to duplicate what's on the existing drywall and only then working on the patch

 

Mitch is spot on

Textures vary a lot depending on who applied it and how they mixed and applied the texture. Thinner mud will result in a lighter texture, the sooner you 'knock down' the texture - the flatter it will be.

If you apply the texture to the wall only to find it's wrong - either scrape it off will still wet or sand it down when dry, then adjust your mud thickness or application technique and try again.

 

Thanks for all the help. One last clarifying question... I know that I have to wait for the texture to dry for a little bit. When I am actually knocking down the texture, am I lightly flattening it by pulling the knife across the texture with some pressure, or am actually using a scraping motion with the knife? Thanks again in advance.

 

You want to drag the knife lightly with just enough pressure so the knife doesn't bounce. The blobs of mud will flatten by them self's unless you let it dry too long.

 

The wall is done and it turned out quite nice. Thank you all very much for your help.

 

Great, glad we could help and thanks for the update