Drywall

Drywall is the surface everything else in a room is judged against. Cabinets, trim, flooring and paint all get read in relation to whether the wall behind them is flat, plumb and continuous — which is why a small failure in the board shows up as a general impression that something is off, long before anyone can name what it is.

We handle the whole process: hanging, taping and texture, and a paint-ready finish. Same standard on a single patch as on an entire addition.

Repair, or replace the section

The first honest question on any damaged wall is how far the damage actually goes, and the answer usually depends on what caused it.

Impact damage — a door handle through the board, furniture, a foot through a ceiling — is almost always local. Cut back to the nearest studs, patch, finish.

Water damage is different, and it is the one people underestimate. Drywall that has been wet loses its integrity even after it dries; the paper face delaminates and the gypsum core stays soft and crumbly. Painting over it does not fix it, and a patch over the stain does not either. The wet material comes out, we find where the water came from, and the section gets replaced.

If you can push a thumb into it, or it sounds hollow and soft when you tap it, that is a section, not a patch.

Why patches show

A repair that fails visually almost never fails at the joint compound. It fails at one of three things:

• The texture does not match — a flawless flat patch in the middle of an orange-peel wall is more obvious than the hole was
• The feather is too short — the transition from patch to wall has to be spread wide enough that light cannot find an edge
• The sheen does not match — old paint has aged, and a fresh coat over a patch reads as a bright rectangle even in the exact same color

The first two are craft. The third is why we will often tell you to paint corner to corner rather than spot-paint the repair — it is more work and it is the only version that actually disappears.

New walls, not just repairs

• New partitions — closing off a room, dividing a space, building out an office
• Additions and new construction — the full run, from bare framing to paint-ready
• Openings — closing up a doorway, or framing and finishing a new one
• Ceilings — including scraping old texture off and refinishing flat
• Moisture-resistant board in bathrooms and laundry areas, where standard board should not be used

Repairs after other trades are worth mentioning too: electrical, plumbing and HVAC work all leave holes behind, and those get closed properly rather than covered.

What it looks like while we are there

Hanging is loud, finishing is dusty, and the two happen on different days. Sanding produces a fine dust that travels well beyond the room, so the work area gets sealed off and anything staying in it gets covered.

The finishing coats need to dry between passes, which means the work arrives in stretches with quiet days in between rather than one continuous run. We tell you which days those are up front.

Across the Bay Area

We take drywall work in San Rafael, Tiburon, Mill Valley and across Marin, in San Francisco, and out through Berkeley, Orinda, Walnut Creek and Vallejo.

If it is a repair, a photo over WhatsApp usually saves a visit — with the damage and a bit of the surrounding wall in frame we can normally tell you whether you are looking at a patch or a section, and roughly what it involves.