Drywall repair

Boring title for a boring job. The repair of our chimney required putting a sizable hole through our basement wall. Since the chimney people seemed hesitant about their ability to fix the hole, I decided to do it myself (they did knock $50 off the bill in the end). I may not know anything, but I'm more motivated to do an acceptable job.

After doing a lot of Google searching and Youtube video watching, I felt I knew what to do.

Above is the hole. It's roughly 16 inches wide and 10 inches tall. I made a test cut on the right edge. It's simple to cut drywall - you just take a sharp knife (or in my case, box-cutter), score the drywall several times, and then you can punch out the piece.

Now we can see clearly how they cut through the (strangely spaced) studs, which needed to be fixed.

I cut the jagged hole into a nice rectangular 22x16 box. I cut intentionally to the stud on the left, but decided not to go all the way to the stud on the right since it was another 6 inches away. This was a good idea because Home Depot sells little pieces of drywall that are 24x24 in size. It would have been extremely annoying to work with a full-size piece. While I was at Home Depot I also picked up a 10 foot 2x4. I cut it into smaller pieces and screwed a couple of them into the existing studs to give support to the  new drywall.

Here we go! As per the random online instructions (this time from Lowes), I cut the new piece slightly larger (with some beveling) than the hole. Which made it impossible to fit in. Cursing Lowes, I then had to cut an 1/8 off of two sides. Not easy. But I eventually got it to fit.

Drywall screws installed, including one securing the "old" wall to the "new" stud (on the right side).

Then I started adding the drywall mud with some big plastic trowel things. It would have been easier with proper metal tools but it didn't seem worth spending another $30+ on something I don't plan on doing (ever again?).

First I laid the mud down, nice and thick (about 1/8 of an inch), then I put the drywall tape on all of the edges (which we already had, thanks to the in-laws with foresight!). 

Here it is 90% done. At this stage all I'm doing is laying down a light coat, sanding, then repeating until it blends with the old wall. I can see a little bubbling of the tape in one corner, but I doubt anyone else will ever see it. I hope. The next step is priming and painting. Ugh. 

There's no way we want to try to match the white of the rest of the walls, so it's going to be an accent color. Since the basement is white with nondescript furniture in it, we are free to paint this wall whatever we want. Any suggestions?