"Matching the Paint" made easy

"I need to touch up my sheetrock walls but I don't have any paint..........HELP!"

Have you ever been caught in this position before? What did you do?

Most "gurus" would have you peel &/or scrape a piece of sheetrock wall off & take to the paint store. You can do this but guess what? You will now have to patch the wall. Do you want to patch your wall? Do you know how to patch your wall? Do you want to spend your valuable time patching your wall.......when there is a better way?

Remember...."there's always 2 ways to skin a cat" my Pappy would say. In this case, one way would be to peel off a square piece of sheetrock "skin". So what's the other way? Very simple really.....but it's taken me awhile to figure it out, since I use to do it the other way. Sometimes the sheetrock "skin" would come off in one piece then other times, it would come off in little shavings when I wanted just one piece. Then I would have to patch the wall then attempt to texture the little patch area (very tricky) not to mention painting the patch too!

Each time I completed a project I would say....."how could I do it differently next time"? Usually I would give up then wouldn't you know, someone would want me to do some paint touchup for them & they wouldn't have any paint.....go figure. I thought, "OK, that's it. I need to figure this out. How can I take a patch off the wall without having to "fix it" later? I became so determined...... I would not give up before I had the answer....then it came to me......my ah ha moment!

Here's the answer: Go to the hardware store & purchase a cut-in 2 gang telephone box. This will be a square plastic box (it won't have any back on it either) that is designed to be installed in a sheetrock wall. You will also have to purchase a double blank plate to cover the front of it once you install it. Go into a closet & pick a wall that looks pretty clean. Measure up from the floor to about the height of an electrical outlet plug. Measure & mark the wall where you will be installing this box (you can install the box behind the door or under some hanging clothes,or......). Cut the sheetrock out & make sure you "grab" the sheetrock piece before it goes down inside the wall (you will be using this sheetrock piece to take to the paint store). Install the cut-in box & install the blank cover plate. It's actually pretty quick & easy once you have the parts. That's it!

The reason I like to use a "double cut-in box" versus a "single cut-in box" is because this makes the sheetrock piece a little larger. The piece isn't that big to begin with so the bigger the better in case the paint store needs to try to match up the paint on several "tries" before they get it right.

You could also use a 3 gang (triple) box if you wanted but then again, you should be able to do everything with a double box to minimize the size of the blank cover plate.

I generally use a "telephone style cut-in box" versus an "electrical style cut-in box" in case I hit a stud in the wall or any other "unwanted creatures" in the wall since the cut-in box for a double telephone generally protrudes very little into the actual wall cavity thereby making it installable virtually anywhere you choose (use your common sense though OK?).

I try to find an inconspicuous location to install this cut-in box like a clothes closet,storage closet,pantry,stairwell/storage area, or someplace like that so the cover plate does not look like it's out of place. * News Flash * Make sure the piece you are taking out of the wall matches the wall color you are wanting to match to (in case your home has more than one paint color....duh).

There you have it. One matching sheetrock wall sample ready to take to the paint store. And you figured that "trick" out all by yourself (it's OK....I won't tell anyone....mum's the word).

See.........you CAN do it.

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Paint on.

VideoJoeKnows