Drywall repair in Baltimore, MD.
Rise and Prime Painting repairs drywall, ceilings and plaster across Baltimore City and Baltimore County, then primes and paints the repair to match the room.
125 Google reviews, 5.0 average.
What does drywall repair in Baltimore include?
Drywall repair in Baltimore covers patching holes, fixing water damage once the leak is corrected, re-taping failed seams, skim coating, matching the texture, and priming and painting the repair as needed.
Rise and Prime Painting offers drywall repair services in Baltimore, MD as a job on its own, for a single hole in a living room or a ceiling after a leak, and as the first step of a repaint. Plaster walls are repaired too, by scope: patching, cracks, damaged areas and skim and finish work before painting. The company holds Maryland MHIC license #120401 and is fully insured, and its owner, Ray Gomez, has over 20 years of experience in painting.
Because the repair is primed and painted by a painting contractor, the patch is finished with the room in mind and there's no separate drywall contractor to book before the painter. If the walls around it need a fresh coat, that's interior painting in Baltimore, and both can go on one estimate. For every other service in Baltimore, Maryland, start with the Baltimore painting contractors page.
- Holes, cracks, seams and water damage
- Plaster patched and skimmed, by scope
- EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm
- Spanish spoken on the first call
Send a photo of the wall or ceiling.
Two photos are enough to start: the damage up close, and the full wall or ceiling from across the room. Between them they show how big the repair is, what the surface is and whether there's texture to match.
Or request the free estimate onlineIs your wall plaster or drywall?
A wall in an older Baltimore home is often plaster on wood lath, and a newer wall or a renovated room is usually drywall. The two are built differently, crack differently and are repaired differently, so plaster repair in Baltimore starts by knowing which one you have.
- Drywall: one sheet of gypsum board, fixed to the framing
- Paper tape and joint compound over the seam between two boards
- Primer and paint on the room side of both walls
- Base coats of plaster, pushed through the gaps so they hook behind the lath
- A thin, hard finish coat over the base coats
- Plaster: wood lath strips nailed across the framing, with gaps between them
Two walls cut through, seen from above, with the room side at the bottom. Not to scale.
| Check | Drywall | Plaster |
|---|---|---|
| What the wall is made of | Sheets of gypsum board fixed to the framing | Wood lath strips, base coats of plaster and a thin finish coat |
| Knock on it | Sounds hollow between the studs | Sounds dull and solid almost everywhere |
| At an outlet or a hole | One thin layer with paper on both faces | Several layers, with wood strips behind them |
| How it usually cracks | Along a seam, or at the corner of a door or window | In long, wandering lines, or a patch comes loose from the lath |
| What the repair is | Patch, re-tape or replace a section of board | Patch with materials made for plaster, then skim and finish |
| Drywall | Plaster |
|---|---|
| What the wall is made of | |
| Sheets of gypsum board fixed to the framing | Wood lath strips, base coats of plaster and a thin finish coat |
| Knock on it | |
| Sounds hollow between the studs | Sounds dull and solid almost everywhere |
| At an outlet or a hole | |
| One thin layer with paper on both faces | Several layers, with wood strips behind them |
| How it usually cracks | |
| Along a seam, or at the corner of a door or window | In long, wandering lines, or a patch comes loose from the lath |
| What the repair is | |
| Patch, re-tape or replace a section of board | Patch with materials made for plaster, then skim and finish |
Plaster repairs are taken on by scope: normal patching, cracks, damaged areas, skim and finish work, and restoration before painting. Rise and Prime Painting is a painting company that repairs plaster, not a specialty restoration firm.
Ceiling repair in Baltimore waits for a dry ceiling.
Ceiling repair after water damage begins once a plumber or roofer has corrected the source, because a patch under a leak that's still active stains and sags again.
In a rowhouse a bathroom often sits over the kitchen or the living room, and a slow drain or a failed seal shows up as a brown ring on the ceiling below. Once the area has dried, water damaged drywall that has gone soft or is sagging is cut back to solid board, and a new piece goes in. A stain on board that is still sound can stay, sealed with a stain-blocking primer so it doesn't bleed through the new paint.
Repair and replacement are often both on the same ceiling: new board where the water reached it, a patch at the edges, the seams taped and finished, and the texture put back so the repaired area matches the rest of the room. Light from a window runs flat across a ceiling and shows any ridge, so the finish matters as much as the fill.
Should the wall be patched, re-taped, replaced or skimmed?
The board around the damage decides it. Sound board takes a patch, a failed seam is re-taped, soft board comes out and a wall covered in marks gets a skim coat.
Firm edges around the hole
A doorknob hole, a nail pop or a cut-out from a plumber or electrician in sound board gets a patch: a new piece set in, taped, finished and sanded flat.
Soft, sagging or stained through
Board that gives under a thumb or has gone brown on the face will not hold a patch. That section comes out to solid board on every side, and new drywall goes in.
A seam that cracked or lifted
The tape has let go along the joint between two boards. The loose tape is stripped out, and the joint is re-taped and finished before any paint.
A whole wall of dings and torn facing
When patching mark by mark would leave a wall of shiny spots, the wall is skim coated with a thin layer of compound and sanded flat.
Not sure which one it is? Text a photo, and the visit settles it.
Texture matched, so the patch disappears.
Of all the drywall services on this page, drywall texturing is the step that decides whether a repair shows. Drag the handle across this ceiling: the patched strips stand out rough and raised on the left, and the knockdown pattern runs over them on the right.
Three stages of the same kind of drywall work.
The ceiling from the top of the page once it was repaired and painted, a hole in a wall cut back to a clean square, and a primed patch beside an outlet, ready for color.
Does a Baltimore house built before 1978 change the repair?
It can. Sanding or cutting old painted walls can disturb lead paint, so a repair in a Baltimore house built before 1978 can come under the EPA lead paint rule, and most of the City's housing is that old.
- 81.6%of City homes built before 1980
- 41.5%of City homes from 1939 or earlier
- 59.3%of County homes built before 1980
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates for 2020 to 2024, pulled 2026-10-15, for Baltimore City and Baltimore County. The Census groups the 1970s together, so the share built before 1978 is a little lower. Rules: EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting program, read 2026-10-21; Maryland Department of the Environment rental property guidance, read 2026-10-14.
Small repairs and the EPA rule
Inside a home, the EPA treats work that disturbs 6 square feet or less of painted surface per room as a minor repair, outside most of the rule. A larger patch, or cutting out a water-damaged section, can pass that line. Rise and Prime Painting is an EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm.
Rental turnovers in Maryland
Maryland asks the owner of a rental built before 1978 to register it and to have a lead inspection certificate at each change of tenant. That duty is the landlord's. The patch-and-paint before the next tenant is the part Rise and Prime can take on.
Plaster and the age of the house
The median home in Baltimore City was built in 1947, against 1973 in Baltimore County. In the City, a cracked wall is often plaster on lath, which is why the plaster question comes first.
What happens after the first photo.
Six steps, and nothing is primed until the patch is sanded flat and its texture blends in.
A photo, then a visit
A texted photo shows the damage, and somebody sets up a visit to see the wall or ceiling in person.
The repair is written down
The estimate lists each repair and whether priming and painting are part of it, so the scope is clear before work starts.
Floors and furniture covered first
Everything close to the repair is covered and protected before anything is cut or sanded.
Patched, taped and finished
Damaged board or plaster is cut back, the patch or new section goes in, and the drywall finishing is built up in thin coats and sanded smooth.
Textured, primed and painted
Texture is built up to blend with the surrounding surface, then the repair is primed and painted as needed so it disappears.
A final walkthrough
The finished repair is checked with you before the project is closed out, and anything on the punch list is addressed.
Is the repair covered by the warranty?
The 3-Year Workmanship Warranty can apply to the repair workmanship itself, as long as there's no ongoing underlying issue such as active moisture, structural movement or another condition outside Rise and Prime's control.
What it covers
The workmanship of the repair: a patch, a re-taped seam or a skim coat that fails because of how it was done.
What it can't cover
A crack that returns because the house is still settling, or a stain from a leak that is still running behind the ceiling.
That's why water damage is repaired only after the source is fixed, and why a crack that keeps coming back is worth a look from a builder first. Small repair jobs are welcome, since the project minimum on painting work does not apply to drywall repair on its own, and the estimate is free.
Take it from the people who've hired us.
Questions about drywall and plaster repair.
How much does drywall repair cost in Baltimore?
The cost of drywall repair in Baltimore depends on the amount of damage, how easy it is to reach, whether texture has to be matched and the overall scope, so Rise and Prime Painting gives the price in a free estimate once somebody has seen the wall or ceiling. Maryland prices are not posted on this site. The project minimum on painting work doesn't apply when the job is drywall repair alone, so a single hole is worth a photo.
Do you repair plaster walls as well as drywall?
Yes, depending on the scope. Plaster repair in Baltimore covers normal patching, cracks, damaged areas, skim and finish work, and restoration before painting. Specialty restoration, such as ornamental plasterwork, is outside that scope.
Can damaged drywall be repaired, or does it need replacing?
Most damaged drywall can be repaired. A hole, dent or crack in sound board takes a patch, while board that is soft, sagging, crumbling or stained through from water is cut out and that section replaced, which is still a repair rather than a new wall.
Will you fix the leak that damaged my ceiling?
No. Water damage is repaired after the source is corrected by a plumber or roofer, because a ceiling patched under an active leak stains and sags again. Once the leak is fixed and the area has dried, the damaged drywall is cut out, replaced, finished and painted.
Will the patch match a textured wall or ceiling?
Yes, that is part of the job. A patch in a knockdown ceiling or a textured wall gets the same pattern built back over it before primer and paint, which is the step that keeps a repair from showing. A close photo of the texture beside the damage helps with the estimate.
Does the warranty cover a drywall or plaster repair?
A drywall or plaster repair can be covered: the 3-Year Workmanship Warranty can apply to the workmanship of the repair itself, assuming there isn't an ongoing underlying issue like active moisture, structural movement or another condition outside Rise and Prime's control. A crack that comes back because the house is still moving, or a stain that returns from a leak that was never fixed, is not a workmanship failure.
Do electricians or plumbers repair the drywall they cut?
Usually not. Electricians and plumbers cut access openings to reach wiring and pipes, and the patch is left as a separate job. Rise and Prime Painting will repair drywall openings like these as a job on their own, patched, taped, finished and painted to match the wall. Drywall construction, new board through a whole room or an addition, is the work drywall contractors are set up for.
Can I check your Maryland MHIC license?
Yes. Rise and Prime Painting holds Maryland MHIC license #120401, issued by the Maryland Home Improvement Commission, and anyone can look the number up on the state register. The company is fully insured and is an EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm. Its owner, Ray Gomez, has over 20 years of experience in painting.
What does Maryland require when a Baltimore rental turns over?
Maryland requires the owner of a rental built before 1978 to register it and to have a lead inspection certificate at each change of tenant. That duty belongs to the landlord. The drywall patching and painting between tenants is the part Rise and Prime Painting can take on.
Which parts of Baltimore do you cover?
Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Rise and Prime Painting repairs drywall and plaster across the Baltimore area, in places such as Towson, Catonsville, Pikesville, Parkville, Essex and Dundalk. Send the address with the first photo or form.
Can the first call be in Spanish?
Yes. Ray Gomez, the owner, answers (443) 743-8052 himself and speaks Spanish, so drywall repair in Baltimore can be talked through in Spanish from the first call. Información en español para Baltimore
Tell us about the damage.
Name the room, wall or ceiling, plaster or drywall if you know, and whether water caused it. Somebody will set up a visit to see it.
- 125 Google reviews, 5.0 average
- Maryland MHIC license #120401
- Fully insured
- EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm
Start with a photo of the damage.
Need drywall damage looked at? Baltimore drywall repairs, large or small, start with one photo. Text it, or call to talk it through. The first call can be in Spanish.
Old paper coming off first? See wallpaper removal in Baltimore.
Text a photoor call (443) 743-8052