Walls, bumps, and lumps galore. Every.single.wall in the new house is super textured. And well, we hate textured walls. Obviously its not the end of the world, but it sure is close to it;) But really, for the look we love, textured walls don’t blend in at all. Im kicking myself for not having a great up close shot of our walls, but here is just a far away glimpse of what we are dealing with:
Side note: Is it just me or do textured walls remind y’all of really old scaly skin?! Haha sick but so true for me. Anyway, heres what I would love your input for. We know how to smooth walls out, but with the whole entire house needing it done, and it being a little bit of a time consuming project, we are wanting to have it professionally done. We have about 3,600 sq ft of walls needing to be done…so needless to say, its not gonna be a cheap job.
So whats it worth to you? Smooth walls make trim, board and batten, wainscoting etc. look dreamy. Where as textured walls, they just don’t really ‘work’ for those things. And we all know what lovers of trim we are. Would you be willing to potentially forego a small projects budget in order to get the walls beautifully smooth? DIYing it isn’t an option for our timeline, which would obviously be the best option:/
This is your new dream home! If you don’t do your walls now, you will continue to look at them daily and hate them, thus kinda destroying your dream home… the home you plan on staying in for (hopefully) years! I say go for it! 🙂
I say go for it, too; otherwise it will always bother you and it is obviously worth it to you. So, there are two opinions now ans that shoild be enough, right? 🙂
Looks like it’s worth it to me, but here’s a question: I don’t know anything about smoothing out walls, but since you’re going to put wainscoting on most walls, couldn’t you just pay to have the smoothing done to only the top 2/3 of the wall? It might not work, but if it did, it might save you some dough!
My brother lives in AZ now too & his walls are textured as well. It seems this is the “norm” there? Here in Michigan we never have textured walls. It seems like they’d be a huge pain in the rear. Do you know if there is a reason they do them that way so much there? Seems like it’d be easier to just throw up the drywall & call it done than to texture it all! Sorry no advice since I’ve never had them, but it’s interesting to me how this seems to me to be a mostly south-west thing.
I don’t know anyone personally who has a house with smooth walls, and I live in the Bay Area (CA). My solution at our last place was painting in the flattest paint available. Any kind of gloss just accentuates all those bumps and lumps.
This house is huge…. And it seems like you will be living in it for a looong time! I personally think it is a no brainier! With the amount of time & energy you are going to take to make this home your own… I wouldn’t cut this corner. Textured walls are in the same vein as popcorn ceilings! And I KNOW you wouldn’t let that fly. 🙂 There really is no way you can fix all those walls & regret doing it. It will make a HUGE difference.
Do it!! You can always do whatever “small projects” from your small projects budget later…
Texture hides imperfections (bangs, scrapes, dents, etc.) in the drywall. I also love smooth walls, but a little texture on the walls + 3 kids = a lot of time saved not having to repair drywall dings.
Something to think about if you’re going to have a few more kids. Your time becomes more and more precious.
Do it. It will bother you the entire rest of the time you’re in the house if you don’t. And then what type of Dream House will it be?
Better to do it now before you move everything in.
If it’s a budget issue, I would keep the textured walls in the halls. Kids bump into everything. You can retexture later. I would retexture the living and dining room to start. If you have to pay $10,000 to do the whole house, that seems reasonable. $20,000, not so much. Ann
DITTO to Rogue Designs’ comment. This is not something you will want to take on later when the dust and mess will be over everything in the house. We have textured walls and popcorn ceilings in most of the houses here in FL, and they areTHE VERY first things we’d change if we bought again.
Renewed Upon a Dream – As mentioned, textured walls are found in the south, too. And they are done that way because they save time (which equals money) – no filling in over drywall tape/screws two or three times with sanding in between. Hit the joints once and then spray the texture. Done but UG-A-LY!
I think if you put up all your wainscoating/board and batting up first, the amount of walls left to be smoothed will seem a lot more do-able. Another to consider is smooth paintable wallpaper… no sanding, not too messy and fast. It’s easy to work with too, and not that expensive, especially compared to professional sanding. I got mine on ebay. Just a thought
I would say do it now if you’re planning on being there awhile. You’ll have time to save up for and budget for smaller projects little by little… but moving everything out of your house to have it all retextured in a year or two would be a nightmare. Especially with kids! It’ll be much easier to start with getting the bones right and then adding to it slowly over the years. If you’re only going to be there a few years, I’m not sure it would be worth it because that’s a lot of money and resale probably won’t reflect as much as it will cost.
Only just now reading this and ther recent tour of you new home! I AM SO excited for you, and absolutely I see the potential and I KNOW you will make it stunning and perfect.
If you can afford to have those walls made all smooth and silky I say do it. It will make a huge difference. If you don’t do it you will never like them and have to make everything work around them. Much like my nasty ass blue carpet in our rental . . 🙂
I agree with everyone else. We had the stippled ceiling look on the walls of our family room and basement… 1) OUCH 2) holy dust/bug collectors and 3) Hideous!!! We do 90% of remodeling ourselves, so in this case – we ripped out the old stuff and hung new drywall. Then, we brought in a drywall finisher to do the rest.
We asked our drywall finisher for what to do about the texture. He told us to put 1/4″ drywall right on top of the old stuff. We didn’t take his suggestion, but it could be an option for you…
Instead, we opted to just remove the old stuff and start fresh. This allowed us to improve our space so much. We added electrical – overhead lighting, switches for the lights, moved/added receptacles, and ran cable and speaker wire. We also discovered a 5-year old empty hornets nest (which we removed), beefed up some old insulation areas, and decided that we’d like to add a window to the room. Most importantly, we got to SEE everything that was behind the drywall before covering it up again (like framing for a window that was never included in the final build of the house).
While it depends on your availability, budget and projected end date – this is definitely something to do early in the process. That drywall dust is so hard to get rid of! The demolition is definitely a DIY job, and so is hanging drywall if you are competent in measuring, muscles and using a drill. It does take time, but I know we saved money by just paying for the finishing part.
If it’s super important to you (and I agree with you that smooth is WAY better), then do it. You’ll regret it if you don’t. And all of the other little details can come together over time. Walls and floors are kind of big projects that should be done first if possible (in my opinion).
Just sayin’ 🙂
If you are doing wainscotting and paying someone to smooth the walls, I’d highly recommend only doing the parts you’ll see and adding board and batten on the other parts. That’s what we did and it saved lots of time (It was DIY, but same difference). I think you’d regret it if you don’t smooth them out.
If it’s really important to you, I say do it. You won’t truly love your house until you do! Although, I agree with Kim’s suggestion..if there are parts of the wall that you know you will cover, don’t waste the money!