Taping, texture and finish levels in Greenville

It tells us roughly what family it is in, which is worth having on the phone. It will not give us the aggregate size or the timing, because a phone flattens the shadows that make a pattern readable. Those come off a light held across the wall on the visit, and then off a test board sprayed in front of you.

Level 5 is a thin skim of compound over the entire face rather than the joints, so there is no difference in porosity between the seams and the board. You need it where light rakes along a wall, which means a long wall with a window at one end, and a dark flat paint. Everywhere else Level 4 is the honest answer.

Around four days in spring and closer to six in high summer, for an ordinary bedroom. Two of those days are drying rather than working. The dusty stretch is the sanding, which is a few hours near the end, and the room is sheeted and zipped off from the first morning.

You can, and a flat or matte paint knocks a lot of the shadow out of it. What paint will not do is change the profile, so the pattern still reads in raking light and still dates the room. If the plan is to sell, paint is the cheap answer and a skim is the one buyers here respond to.

That is exactly when it has to match, so it is judged primed rather than bare. Compound and old paint take a roller differently, which is why the matched area is primed and then the wall is recoated corner to corner. Painting only the new part is what makes a good match visible again.

No, but you lose that room and the doorway to it for the day. Spraying is the one stage where fine texture travels, so the room is masked out floor to ceiling, the doorway is zipped and the crew works behind it. Anything you cannot move gets covered, and it is worth taking soft furnishings out entirely.

Almost always what was underneath it. Texture sprayed onto dusty board, onto old gloss paint with no primer, or onto a surface that was still damp will let go in sheets a few years on. It is also why we prime before texturing over anything painted, rather than trusting that it will grip.

We can, and it works where the wall is a plane on its own, like a fireplace wall or a room divider. Where two walls meet in an internal corner the change reads as a mistake rather than a feature, so on an ordinary bedroom the sensible unit is the whole room rather than one side of it.

An ordinary outlet and a faucet, which every occupied house already has. The compressor and the sanders run off standard household circuits, and mixing takes clean water. On a new-construction house with no service on yet we bring a generator, and that is said in the quote rather than found on the morning.

A heavy knockdown, by a distance, then skip trowel, then orange peel, and flat hides nothing at all. That is the real reason so much of the housing stock here is textured. It is worth saying that hiding a wave is not the same as fixing it, and a badly bowed wall is better shimmed than sprayed.

Yes, and it is a normal booking. We will look at the tape and the screw setting first and tell you honestly whether the coats can go over what is there or whether some of it comes back off. Taking on somebody else's taping without saying that would put our finish over their joints.

Trim once the primer is dry, which is the day after we finish in spring and two days in August. Pictures and fixings any time after that. What is worth waiting for is the topcoat, because fitting trim onto compound still damp underneath traps the moisture and the paint flashes along the top edge months later.