Hello,
I am asking a novice / stupid questions here that I wanted to confirm.
I am about to repaint a wall in the garage. But before I do, there is some dry wall tape that is fully bubbling off in one of the horizontal seams and also in the corner. The full 12 ' seam and the full 8' vert corner.
My Question is:
Can I peel this tape off, fill the area with compound on a wall that already has been painted, retape it and paint it. Every DIY video is someone mudding dry wall, in this case the dry wall has already has paint from 20 years ago. So is it OK for me to mud over a pre existing painted wall? Of course right?
The final result after the compound and tape dries is to re-paint everything. Just wanted to make sure I can spread compound over a painted wall?
Yea, stupid question but just wanted to check. Thanks!

 

If you peel off the tape that is loose you should have bare sheetrock or mud underneath so no problem there. You will get some mud over onto the painted wall when you finish but that won't be a problem. You might have a slightly harder time sanding the mud to a perfect feathered edge but priming and painting with a thick nap roller usually provides enough texture to conceal it.

 

Absolutely, peel it off, cut it out, trim the loose edges.

For easiest repair use the self adhesive mesh tape to replace then several coats to seal it in, sand, prime, paint, simple repair!

 

Thanks,
So I took a blade and cut the tape out, it pulled up all the way untill I can see the brown paper? I read somewhere that Mud will be absorbed by the brown dry wall paper. So there was a suggestion to prime the slashed out section so that there is a barrier for the mud?

 

Paper tape is stronger. If you use mesh, the next coat needs to be a setting compound.

Any exposed gypsum needs to be primed with Zinsser Gardz or an oil based primer before adding joint compound.

 

Its a simple drywall repair, it does not require extraordinary steps to complete.

If you want to prime you can, I have never felt the need, never had a problem,

You can use paper tape, you can use mesh tape, for the novice, the mesh tape is simple to use, I've done several basements completely with mesh, works as advertised.

You can use setting mud or topper, I have never used setting mud and the results and nothing has ever fallen off the walls.

If I didn't mention, it's a simple drywall repair, use the materials you have and everything will turn out fine!

,

 

To clarify, the only time you'd need Gardz is if the drywall face paper is missing [exposed gypsum]. Other than that, the repair is fairly straightforward.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. Good to know there are specific steps to do it right, But maybe like Marq is saying, it is a simple repair and I won't get too caught up in the weeds. I will just start to fill this in with a few layers of joint compound over the next few days and build it all up. I only have paper tape, for what ever reason the mesh tape was going to have to be shipped in from another store and it would take 4 days? So Paper tape, joint compound, mud knife, sanding paper, and primer and paint. Thanks for your help and off I go. See how "simple" this goes for me.