Every now and again, it becomes necessary to repair a hole in the wall of the bathroom. One of the main causes of such holes is an accident resulting in a towel holder being ripped off the wall. If you have experienced this in your own bath, there’s no need to panic; repairing it is fairly simple. If your house was built during the 1950s or later, you most likely have drywall rather than older horsehair plaster walls. That’s good from a repair standpoint. With a scrap piece of drywall, some compound, and a little patience you can repair your wall as good as new. Here are the steps:

Preparation •Trace the hole by placing a piece of notebook paper over the top and marking the outline with a pencil. Next, you are going to transfer your tracing to the BACK side of a scrap piece of drywall. Make sure the piece is at least 2 inches larger than the hole on every side. If it helps, you can cut the traced hole out of notebook paper and use it as a stencil.

• The next step is to use a utility knife to cut the back side of the drywall. Be careful not to cut all the way through; you really just want to score the paper. Once you have scored all the way around, gently break the drywall along the outside edges so you are left with an intact piece that is the exact shape of the hole you are filling.

• NOTE: you want to carefully peel away the extra drywall while leaving the paper intact. If you do this right, you should end up with a patch consisting of all of the paper you started with and a piece of drywall in the center of the patch.

Filling the Hole The last step is filling the hole and finishing up the job.

• Generously coat the underside of the patch (especially the paper) with drywall compound. Slip the patch into the whole so that the paper is now on the outside, sticking to the exterior of the wall. Gently squeeze out any extra compound using a drywall knife.

• Let the patch set up for about 20 minutes, then cover the entire area with the coat of drywall compound. Let it dry overnight, sand, and put a second coat on. Repeat with a third coat the following day. Once that third coat dries you will be ready to sand and paint. You will now have a rock solid repair is just as strong as an undamaged wall.

Learning simple repairs like this makes it easy for you to maintain your bathroom no matter what the family throws at it. With some preventive maintenance and repairs when needed, you can make sure your bath is always a welcoming an attractive space. And when it’s time to make repairs, that’s also a good time to consider a new coat of paint and maybe some new decorative elements.