Smoothing New Texture to Match the Old

In the Rattlesnake job, the taper textured a few damaged areas in an attempt to match the existing texture. But as often happens, his end result was rough and didn't really match. You might experience something like this on your own painting projects, and chances are that if you do, you don't know how to fix it.

In this picture, you can see how rough his texture turned out compared to the yellow wall on the right. If we painted it at this point, the texture would be too heavy, and it would draw every eye to the patch.

In the following picture, you can really see how rough the new texture turned out. It doesn't really look anything like the old wall.

So to fix it, all we need to do is get a wet rag and lightly rub away some of the new mud. Here I am using a rougher rag since its fibers will work like mild sandpaper.

When you wet your rag, don't use too much water--it dissolves drywall mud pretty fast. if you get it too wet, you risk removing too much mud and ruining your new texture. Just get the rag wet, wring it out, then ball it up so you have layers of rag between your hand and the wall. Err on the dry side at first, then go to the wall and start gently wiping in circular motions along the edge of the new mud.

In the following video (which I took from my phone, so it's not to our usual high standards) you can see how I do it:

Notice the scratching sound the rag is making--I am erring on the side of caution by not using too much water. It's still wet enough that it doesn't produce sanding dust, but it's not dripping with water either.

Just rub your way across the wall, taking down the high spots in the texture. Re-wet your rag as necessary (it will be), and keep going. You can see how much mud I removed--and it is starting to resemble the old texture.

In the following pictures, you can see that the taper created large stringy lines that don't really resemble the existing texture, Well, once we paint the new mud, it will mostly blend in and go away. If someone stands in front of the wall and intentionally examines the surface, they will certainly be able to see the patch, but for everyday life, it will look just fine.

Take special care along the edges where the new texture meets the old--smudge away the mud as you feather the edge. You want to avoid leaving any hard edges, since they will draw your eye.

The main goal is to level out the textures--then when we apply a couple coats of paint (Benjamin Moore's Aura yet again, in this case), they will blend into each other.

My brother Josh finished up painting the wall--it ended up matching perfectly.

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