While the kitchen electrical was underway we also removed all trims  and wood borders in the house and steamed all popcorn from the ceilings to prep for drywall texturing. Originally the plan was to just texture the walls we had ripped into, but we realized since there will be so much new drywall as well as old dented/wonky/crooked drywall needing it’s flaws hidden it’d be worth doing everything all at once; and if we don’t do it now we never will once we’ve moved in… so it’s been decided to have all the walls and ceilings retextured.

Also, in our original plan (can you sense a pattern of disappointing realizations here?) we would tape and texture everything ourselves to save money but after the cement floor grinding fiasco I am heeding the majority vote and hiring this one out – regardless of cost – which means even more penny pinching elsewhere. We have a bet with my dad and stepmom about how much it’ll cost and the losers have to buy lunch. We haven’t gotten any estimates yet, but I’m assuming it’ll be something astronomical and vomit-inducing like $3000-3500. Not sure how we’re going to pull this one off yet, but there has been talk of a 2013 Xmas and birthday “advance” from our parents which would help us put a an ever-appreciated dent in the bill.

A few years ago we helped Dad drywall his newly built 2000+ sqft. workshop. It took six of us working for five weekends to get the whole place drywalled, so dad decided to hire out the rest. The tape-and-texture guys came in and finished the job beautifully in only a few days. I can’t imagine the thrill of walking into our house for the first time after it’s been textured and we didn’t have to spend weeks doing it. I think this purchase will be well worth the excruciating pain it’ll cause our wallets.

Why do we have to texture at all?  Texturing helps reduce the visibility of any flaws in the drywall tape and mud job, as well as masking many blemishes the wall will inevitably receive during normal home wear-and-tear. If you have a perfectly smooth wall and you make one dent or ding, it’s really going to stand out, and in our household that would be a chronic problem. I can’t even imagine how bad the walls would look if we had kids. It’s bad enough now just between my general klutziness as I move my photo equipment around and our kooky wall-bouncing cat.

So what textures are there to choose from? Why, I’m so glad you asked! ;) Here is a helpful link to the most common textures used today: http://www.drywallschool.com/textures.htm

We are pretty fond of the plain-old California Knockdown texture that we have in our 2005 house, and thought that using the same texture and the same bullnose corner bead (fancy rounded wall corners) would give Brake Manor an updated look using the least amount of effort and cost.