Fixing a settlement crack

At least I HOPE that’s a settlement crack, and not something major. 

Yikes.

We have a huge crack on the ceiling in our living room. Not huge as in deep, but huge as in long and running along an obvious seam between panels that was hastily patched by the previous owners so it didn’t look terrible during showings. At least I don’t recall seeing a HUGE crack on the ceiling while we were at showings or walkthroughs. But not long after we moved in it started creeping across the ceiling. Eight months later and there are whole sections of the paper coming off. I’m hopeful this is just a bad job vs a serious structural issue. Let’s patch it and see what happens. 

First step, knocking all this down. Man I am tired of having to clean up drywall mess.

Jeez those are big chunks of tape.

Initially I was thinking mesh tape, but as it turns out that was mesh tape coming off anyway, so why not try some of the tons of paper tape I’ve got left over. Maybe I’ll do a better job mudding than the last guy and this will be fine. Based on the bubbles I’ve already got to cut out, probably not. Still looks better than a huge crack though, even though that leads to a new step of cutting out the bubbles. 

Rough patch, bubbles, miss-matched color, still looks better than a crack.

Finishing this is going to have to wait until I have more time, but hopefully an extra coat and prime isn’t impossible to fit in. Then I’ll see about matching the patch to the rest of the ceiling. For now, I’ll be satisfied with not looking at an unsightly gash in our ceiling once I figure out exactly when I’m going to be fixing this, then patching the one that crept across the other opening there.