Pittsburgh's Drywall Repair Done by Plasterers

Drywall Repairin Pittsburgh, PA

Holes, popped nails, failed tape, water damaged board and textures that have to match. Mike Merola & Sons repairs drywall across Pittsburgh, including the walls where board runs straight into original plaster.

(412) 583-7294 Get Free Quote

✓ 30+ Years of Hands-On Plastering ✓ Fifth Generation Family Business ✓ Serving Pittsburgh Since 1997

Where Board Meets Plaster

Your Local Drywall Contractor in Pittsburgh, PA

We are a plastering family that also hangs and finishes board, and in Pittsburgh that combination matters more than it sounds. Half the houses here are part plaster and part drywall, so a repair often has to start in one material and land in the other without a ridge or a shadow at the join. Working both means we can pick whichever the wall actually wants instead of forcing the one we happen to carry. The standard, in the owner's father's words, is quality, long lasting work.

Our Process

How It Works

The same four steps on every job, whatever the work turns out to be.

Free Consultation & Quote

Give us a call or submit a quote request online. We will discuss your project, arrange a visit to your Pittsburgh-area home, and provide a detailed, no-obligation estimate. No surprises, no pressure.

Scheduling & Preparation

Once you approve the quote, we lock in a start date that works for your schedule. We arrive on time, prepared with everything needed to get the job done right, and protect your home before we begin.

Expert On-Site Work

With 30+ years of hands-on plastering and five generations of craftsmanship behind us, our team carries out the work with skill and pride. We keep the workspace clean and keep you in the loop throughout.

Final Walkthrough & Completion

When the work is done we walk through every detail with you to make sure you are completely satisfied. We clean up thoroughly before we leave. Your home is left better than we found it.

(412) 583-7294 Get a Free Quote

What We Fix

The Drywall Repairs Pittsburgh Homes Call For

From a doorknob hole to a ceiling that is coming away from the framing. These are the jobs we get called out to most.

Holes and Impact Damage

A door handle through the wall, furniture on the move, a foot through a stairwell. We back the opening, let in fresh board and coat it out so the repair sits flat instead of proud.

Nail holes up to full sheet openings
Backed and braced, never just filled
Edges feathered well past the patch

Popped Nails, Failed Tape and Cracked Seams

Screw heads that keep showing and seams that keep opening are movement, not a filler problem. We refasten to the framing, cut out the lifted tape, retape and recoat the line.

Nail and screw pops refastened
Bubbled and lifted tape replaced
Corner bead and inside corners

Water Damaged and Sagging Board

A leak above leaves board soft, stained and pulling away from the framing. We take out everything that has gone, check what is behind it, then rebuild and stain block before finishing.

Soft and crumbling board removed
Sagging ceilings refastened
Stains blocked so they stay gone

Texture Matching and Finish Levels

This is where most drywall repairs give themselves away. We match knockdown, orange peel, skip trowel and the hand worked finishes in older homes, then take the wall to the level the room needs.

Sprayed and hand applied textures
Smooth finishes ready for paint
Checked in raking light before we leave

Board Let Into an Original Plaster Wall

New board is thinner than three coat plaster, so the two never meet flush on their own. We pack the difference out and carry the finish across, which is the join most crews leave sitting as a step.

Depth built out to meet the plaster
Join reinforced so it will not open
One crew for board and plaster

Drywall Ceilings Under Old Lath

Plenty of Pittsburgh ceilings are board screwed up under the original lath. Fixings catch lath instead of joist and let go, so we find the framing and hang the repair off something solid.

Joists located, not guessed at
Loose lath dealt with first
Ceiling brought back to one plane

The Finish We Work To

Taped, Jointed and Ready for Paint

Drywall is judged after the paint goes on, which is too late to fix it. The seams and the fixings are where a job gives itself away.

Drywall panels taped and jointed, with fresh compound worked over the seams and fixings — Compound worked over the seams and every fixing, then sanded flat before the first coat of paint.

Board Or Sheet

Repairing the Board vs Replacing the Whole Sheet

A doorknob hole, a plumbing cut, or a water stain rarely ruins a full sheet of drywall. Knowing where the line sits saves both money and mess.

Repair the Board

Cut in a patch and finish it flush.

A clean square of new board is set in, taped, coated, and sanded flush.
Handles the common cases: doorknob holes, small cuts, and access openings.
Cheaper and quicker, and the trim and baseboard usually stay in place.
Needs a proper backer behind it or the patch will move and crack later.

Replace the Sheet

Pull the panel and hang fresh board.

The right move when a panel is soft, crumbling, or swollen from water.
Avoids a grid of patches, which never quite reads flat under side light.
Removing the sheet exposes the cavity so the real cause can be checked.
More labor, more dust, and trim often has to come off and go back.

How to tell which one you have

Press the damaged area firmly with your thumb. If the board is still hard and the damage is a clean hole, a patch is all it needs. If your thumb sinks in, the paper face is peeling, or the panel has gone soft and grainy, water has taken the gypsum and no amount of filler will bring it back. One more test: count the separate damaged spots on the panel. Once you are patching three or four places on one sheet, replacing it is usually less work than blending all of them.

(412) 583-7294 Get a Free Quote

Local Service Area

Drywall Repair Across the Greater Pittsburgh Area

Every area we cover has its own page, because the housing stock is not the same from one to the next. Find yours below.

Shadyside

Board goes in where plaster came out in these pre-war buildings, and most drywall crews cannot finish that joint flat.

Squirrel Hill

When a lath ceiling comes down in an East End house, the replacement board still has to meet plaster on every side.

Sewickley

Century-old rooms often hide a board patch from an earlier repair, and getting rid of that flat spot is the real job.

Fox Chapel

Estate rooms rocked during a past remodel sit beside untouched original plaster, and only a plasterer makes that transition invisible.

Edgeworth

Drywall let into a heritage wall reads as a flat panel unless the finish is built up to match the plaster around it.

Franklin Park

Modern framing moves as it dries, so nail pops and cracked seams show up in these newer homes within a few years.

Bell Acres

Knockdown and orange peel textures are common in these custom houses, and a repair only disappears once that texture is resprayed.

Bradford Woods

A cracked ceiling seam in a newer borough home usually means the tape let go, and taping straight over it will not hold.

Gibsonia

Some rooms are board and some are plaster, so a repair here starts with knowing which one you are actually cutting into.

Upper St. Clair

Split levels and colonials in the South Hills take doorway and stairwell impact damage, which is straight drywall patching and finishing.

Allison Park

Basement finishes and additions add plenty of board to these homes, and moisture, movement and impact all leave their marks on it.

Wexford

Fast-built subdivisions settle hard in their first years, and popped nails and hairline seam cracks follow across ceilings and walls.

Mt. Lebanon

Tudors and colonials were plastered originally, so board added later has to be finished up to plaster depth, not taped and left.

Peters Township

Almost everything built here is drywall, so the work is seam repair, water damage from an upstairs leak, and texture matching.

Canonsburg

One street of borough houses is plaster and lath, the next subdivision over is board, and the repair differs completely.

Mars

Growing Butler County neighborhoods bring standard drywall work, from a hole behind a door to a ceiling opened up after a leak.

Seven Fields

Planned communities built recently are board from top to bottom, so repairs mean clean seams, sound corners and a matched texture.

Pine Township

Big newer houses have long ceiling runs where a failed seam shows for ten feet, and it has to be cut back and refinished.

Richland Township

Whether it is a doorknob hole or a soaked ceiling after a leak, the damaged board comes out and the finish goes back seamless.

Murrysville

Additions built onto older houses meet plaster at the doorway, and that junction is where a drywall repair usually gives itself away.

View All Service Areas

Rooted in Pittsburgh

In Pittsburgh, Drywall Work Is Half Plaster Work

Very few homes here are drywall all the way through. Board arrived later, room by room, so most repairs end up touching the plaster that was already there. The Merola family has been working both across the city since 1997.

5th

Generation Family Business

30+

Years of Hands-On Plastering

100s

Historic Homes Restored

100%

Pittsburgh-Based & Proud

Rooms That Are Half Board, Half Plaster

A kitchen reworked in the eighties, a bathroom redone last decade, a front room never touched since it was built. One house can hold three different wall build ups, and a repair that crosses from one to the next has to be finished by someone comfortable in both materials.

Board Hung Under the Original Lath

Rather than pull a failing plaster ceiling down, previous owners often screwed drywall straight over it. It looks solid until the fixings find lath instead of joist. Repairing one of those means understanding what is above the board before anything new goes up.

Depth, Texture and the Join Between Them

Plaster and board sit at different thicknesses and take a finish differently, so the seam between them is where a repair usually fails. Building the depth out and carrying the texture across the join is the part a drywall only crew tends to skip.

Straight Answers

Pittsburgh Plaster Questions

How do I know if my walls are plaster or drywall?

Press a thumbtack into an out of the way spot. Drywall takes it easily, plaster is hard and will resist or stop it. Knocking helps too, since plaster sounds solid and dense while drywall sounds hollow between the studs. In a house built before the late 1940s, plaster over wood lath is the likely answer.

Why do the cracks keep coming back after they are filled?

Filler treats the surface, not the reason the wall moved. Cracks usually come back because the plaster has come loose from the lath behind it, or because the house is still settling and shifting with the seasons. The fix is to secure the plaster back to the lath first and deal with the movement, then rebuild the surface. Skip that step and you are refilling the same line next year.

Can plaster be repaired, or does it have to be replaced with drywall?

In most cases it can be repaired. Plaster that is sound and simply cracked or loose in places can be reattached and patched in, and the wall keeps the hardness and the depth that made it worth having. Ripping it out for drywall is a bigger, dustier job than most people expect. We will tell you straight when a wall is too far gone to save.

Do you work in older city homes with original lath?

Yes. That is the bulk of what we do. This is a fifth generation family business with more than 30 years of hands-on plastering behind it, serving Pittsburgh since 1997, and wood lath, three coat plaster and old ceilings are ordinary to us. Estimates are free, so if you want a number, send a photo of the area along with the address and we will come back to you within 2 to 3 business days.

How do you match the texture on an old wall?

By reading the existing surface first and then working the new material to suit it, since a smooth wall, a sand float and a hand troweled finish all need a different approach. Feathering the patch out past the repair is what keeps the join from showing under a raking light. The standard we work to is the one Mike's father set: quality, long lasting work.

(412) 583-7294 Get a Free Quote

Ready to Get Started?

Get Your Drywall Repair Quote

Send a photo of the wall or ceiling, or just call and describe it. If board is meeting old plaster, say so, because that is the work we know best. Free estimates, no pressure.

(412) 583-7294 Request a Quote

5th generation family business · Pittsburgh, PA · Free estimates