We work on the pre-war plaster in the older grid and the drywall in everything built since, and we find what caused the damage first, so the repair holds.
Your house was built in one of two Sacramentos, and your walls will tell you which. Inside the grid you get streetcar-era bungalows and Tudors with real pre-war plaster on them, and there's more of that still in place here than people expect. Everything built out from there is drywall, tract by tract, decade by decade. Sacramento Expert Drywall works on both eras, and knowing which one you own is a head start on your repair.
An East Sacramento bungalow and a house in Elk Grove are two different jobs behind the paint, and they want different materials, different tools and a different day. Plaster wants one approach, drywall wants another, and a 1950s house can hand you both in the same hallway. A drywall contractor in Sacramento who works both halves of the city can tell yours apart from the doorway. When we know which one we're walking into, the price fits the house and so does the finish.
So the first question we ask isn't what's wrong with your wall. It's when the room you're standing in was built. If you don't know, we can usually work it out on the phone in about a minute. The ceiling, the window openings and the sound the wall makes when you knock on it are enough to place most houses here.
Once we know the era, the rest of the call gets short. If yours is an older plaster room, we're talking about keeping the wall you have and matching a finish somebody worked by hand. If it's newer drywall, we're talking about what moved it and which sprayed texture came off the gun. Both end in the same place, with a wall that matches the room around it.
Cracked or damaged walls you already live with, closed up and finished to blend back in with the rest of the room. First we figure out what's behind the crack, because that's what stops it from opening up again.
How we find the cause before closing a wall →
Drywall for a new addition, an ADU, a remodel, or a single wall that got taken out. Board, tape, finish and texture, all left so your painter can walk in and get started.
What goes into a new drywall job →
Sagging, screws working loose, and the line that opens along a wall with the seasons, which usually proves to be nothing at all. Ceiling work means ladders and extra hours, so you'll see what that part costs before you book it.
Why ceilings cost more than walls →
We test it, take it down, and then do the finish work that gets your ceiling ready to paint. Anything sprayed before 1978 gets tested, since there's no way to know what's in that texture without testing it.
Testing, removal, and what a smooth ceiling costs →
The part that decides whether your repair disappears into the wall. Knockdown, orange peel, skip trowel and hand-worked plaster all behave differently, so we sample yours and match it before we commit.
How we blend a repair into your wall →
Dried properly before anything gets closed up, because the meter decides that and not the calendar. We find the source first, and if water is still getting in we'll help you get that handled so the new work stays dry.
Dry it first, and how long that takes →
Pre-war walls kept rather than torn out, which is usually the cheaper answer as well. Re-securing the original wall and matching its texture keeps the room looking like itself.
Keeping an old wall instead of replacing it →
Holes you can already see and measure, closed and gone, several of them in one visit. Doorknobs, furniture and the odd foot through a hallway wall are most of what we see, and most are a single trip.
Small damage, one visit, done properly →
Level 3, 4 and 5, and which one your room actually needs. Level 5 earns its keep on a wall that catches low window light, and level 4 gives you the same result everywhere else.
Levels 3, 4 and 5, and which one you need →
One room, one code requirement, and a good chance yours already meets it. The wall that separates your garage from the house is the one that matters, and it only counts if it runs unbroken.
The one code rule that applies to your garage →A price you'll be able to rely on comes from standing in front of your wall and looking at it. That takes longer than a number over the phone, and that's the reason the price holds.
Knowing why your wall moved is what lets the repair last, so that's where we start on every job we take.
Most of the day on most jobs, because the finish is the half of the work you look at afterward.
What we're doing, what we're not doing, and which parts belong to another trade, on one page you can keep.
Floors covered, doorways sealed, furniture moved back before we go. Sanding is the messy part of drywall, and keeping the dust contained is included in the work, not charged as an extra.
Small repairs collected into a single trip, because travel is most of what a small job costs.
Sacramento was built out in a few fairly clear waves, and each one has its own look. Knock on a wall sometime and you'll hear it: hollow and drummy is drywall, dead solid is plaster. You don't need to, though. If you have a rough idea of when your house was built, you've already got most of this, and if you don't, we can usually tell within a minute of walking into the room.
Plaster over wood lath, thick and hard, in the grid and the older suburbs. Repairs here are about keeping the original wall, which is usually the better-looking result and the cheaper one.
The transitional years. Plaster over a board backing in some rooms, early drywall in others, and both can turn up in one house.
Drywall everywhere, sprayed finishes, and popcorn sprayed onto most ceilings as standard. Worth a quick test before anybody scrapes one.
Framing that's consistent from room to room, knockdown and orange peel textures, and walls whose questions are about screws and seasons rather than age.
Much of this valley sits on clay that soaks up water through a wet winter and gives it back over five dry months, and it shifts a little every year while it does. That movement works its way up through the house and shows up wherever a wall is weakest, which is almost always a corner above a door or a window.
It's why a crack here can open through the summer and close again over the winter, and why the same crack in Folsom or Rocklin usually means something simpler. That ground is granite, and granite doesn't move this way.
Knowing which ground you're on changes the advice, not just the price. On clay we'll usually note the crack, come back at the right end of the season, and close it once. On granite it's a straightforward repair and you can have it done whenever it suits you.
Timing is the part that pays you back. A crack closed at the right end of the year on clay ground stays closed, and it still looks right the following summer, which is the whole point of paying for it. On the few walls where the month matters we'll point you at the right one, and what you get for waiting is a repair that holds and a room you stop looking at.
| What you're seeing | What's usually behind it | How soon to act | What we'd do about it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hairline above a door or window | Everyday stress at the wall's weakest spot | Not urgent | A simple close and finish |
| The same line back after a repair | Something behind it is still on the move | Have it looked at first | Track down the cause, then close it |
| Round bumps in a line | Screws working loose | Not urgent | Reset them, then close |
| A brown mark that's soft to touch | Water is still reaching it from behind | Call us today | Deal with the source, dry it out, rebuild |
Use this as a head start, not a diagnosis. Nobody should tell you anything for certain until your wall has had a proper look. Describe what you're seeing and we'll give you the usual explanation, and if something in this table doesn't match what's actually on your wall, ask us. We like those questions and we have all day for them.
One close enough to see the damage, one from across the room. The visit is free either way.
What we're seeing, what it will take to put right, and a price for it before anybody starts.
With a return trip built in where the finish needs one, so the last coat gets the attention that makes it disappear.
Rentals and turnovers are a different job from a homeowner repair, and we treat them that way. What you need is a date you can plan around, a price that doesn't move, and work that still looks right at the end of the next tenancy. Some walls are worth doing properly because your next tenant looks at them every day, and some are fine as a quick close before the painter comes through. We sort your list into the two, and across a portfolio that difference adds up in your favor.
Multiple units on one visit is where the savings are, in the same way it's for a homeowner with four small repairs. Give us the whole list and we'll sequence it rather than pricing each one as though it stood alone. Several addresses across the metro get sequenced into one run, which is what keeps the per-unit price down.
916-584-9660
Newer houses, engineered framing, and smooth finishes that reward a careful match.
The youngest housing on our list, on clay ground that shifts from one season to the next.
Most of the neighborhood was built within one decade, so the walls behave much the same on every street.
Granite ground, so a crack here usually has a simpler cause than the same crack downtown.
The oldest suburban housing we work in, plus a 1950s layer that mixes plaster and drywall in one house.
Houses from the 1890s and 1970s tract on the same street, so your wall sets the plan.
Here are three quick answers. About twenty more are on the FAQ page, including what popcorn removal and asbestos testing cost.
Most single repairs land between $250 and $500: a doorknob hole, a hairline over a door, the bare patch where a fixture came off. If you have a few of them waiting, have us do them on the same visit and the total usually comes to $400 to $900, since you're only paying for one trip. Bigger damaged areas are priced by the square foot, around $3 to $8 per square foot. What decides where yours falls in those ranges is how easy the wall is to get to and which finish we need to match. The FAQ page breaks the rest of it down.
Nine times out of ten we'd repair it, and that's usually the cheaper route. The board itself is inexpensive but the labor isn't, so tearing out a whole wall just to avoid patching it tends to cost more than the patch. Replacement makes sense when the problem is behind the surface: water that got into the framing, or a section that's been repaired so many times it would look better starting fresh. Once we see yours we'll tell you which one applies and why, and either way you end up with a surface that matches the room.
A handyman can close a hole, and when the hole is small and the garage wall is plain and flat, that's the right person to call. Whether the patch still shows a month later comes down to the finish. If your walls have a sprayed texture, getting it to match is the bulk of the work, and it takes practice and a sample board to get right. So if the wall is flat and the hole is small, call a handyman. For a textured wall in a room you see every day, it's worth hiring someone who matches texture day in and day out.
Tell us what you're looking at and we'll come back with a real answer. Photos help, a description is fine, and 916-584-9660 is quicker than either.
