Like most folks, who have a home, sometimes things aren't perfect and part of home ownership is repair. When we purchased our house a couple of years ago, I really loved the house everything about it was almost perfect except it had a long skinny crack over the doorway leading into the hallway. I could have asked the sellers to repair the crack, but I felt we had asked them for too much already, including the amount we asked them to come down on the price. It was just a little crack, something we could do without too much trouble.
We bought the house and were very cozy in our little home. I began to notice though that sometimes when I was in my bedroom and someone walked in through the front door that I would hear like a little whooshing sound. It begin to annoy me in time and I couldn't figure out what was causing it and to be honest with you I didn't try too hard and what was weird no one else seemed to hear it. Anyway after about a year it really began to bother me and I began to suspect that skinny crack over the door. I had been waiting until I had the time to paint the living room and dining room before I repaired it. I'm the painter in the house. I'm such a stickler for perfection in painting, my husband has given up trying to meet my standards, so he has opted out of the interior painting process. I thought I'd just go ahead and fill in the crack to see if that annoying whooshing sound would go away. So I headed down to Lowes to buy some spackle. I hate spackling anything because it is such a hassle to sand it down smooth so it looks good, and when you paint over it it never looks good. I guess my spacke skills leave much to be desired.
I drove down to Lowes and headed to the paint section. I'm standing there in front of all the spackle stuff. They had all kinds of spackle and spackle-like stuff there. They had stuff for huge cracks, stuff for skinny long cracks, stuff to spray on, stuff to put on with a putty knive, etc. I grabbed the can of spray on stuff, maybe if I used this I could avoid all the sanding, I thought. I'm reading the tiny little print instruction on the can or trying to anyway because I forgot my reading glasses. I hear a voice behind me...."Can I help you, ma'm? I of course, answer in with the regular shopper answer "No thanks, just looking." Then I think, maybe he can help so I quickly turn and holding the spackle product spray can in my hand. I say " Excuse me, sir, does this stuff work?" He's a guy, looks to be in his forties with a slightly balding head and he has a little smirky grin on his face. "What are you going to do with it?" I shook the can slightly, " I have a skinny long crack over my doorway in the living room and I want to fill it in."
He smiled, "Hmmm....sounds like a stress crack or settling crack. I wouldn't suggest you use that spray product."
I was curious about the spray spackle stuff. "Do a lot of people buy this, do you know of anyone who has used it and liked it?"
Shaking his head slightly, he said "I take it you own your home?"
I nodded my head "Yes and I have a crackin my wall that I need to cover."
"I was a painter for over 20 years...you see all of this stuff here he pointed in the direction of the spackle stuff, this is stuff that homeowners like you use, but I can tell you what I as a professional painter would use." He pointed to a small tub of wallboard joint compound and he grabbed a small 3"-4" self -adhering roll of mesh. "You just place this mesh over the crack and then you use a putty knife and apply this compound over the crack. It's thinner than spackle so it will spread evenly and it is easy to sand. This is what I as a professional painter would use."
I didn't think twice I grabbed both items and headed home. I couldn't wait to see if he was correct, so I climbed on a ladder and cut the mesh to the length of the crack. It wasn't super sticky and it stuck right to the wall but yet I could reposition it if I wanted. I then opened the joint compound and I applied it to the wall, it went on exactly like he said, it kind of flowed on and it didn't look like spackle at all. I didn't have to work hard to get it to be smooth because it was smooth. I waited for it to dry and it looked great dry, with a little bit of sanding, you couldn't even tell there had been a crack on the wall. I have a white wall so the repair wasn't obvious. I couldn't wait to show it to my husband. He was impressed with my wall crack repair skills.
Anyway, the whooshing sound is gone and my wall looks good. I can just say I lucked out that the ex-painter sales person happened to be there that day because I learned something very valuable from him. I believe this is a very valuable home repair tip to pass on from a homeowner, who is not a professional painter.
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