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I hate texture. We have it in the place we just bought, and I'll be hiring a drywall expert to skim coat it. The previous owner has patched it in areas, and they look horrible. Plus they had big wall mounted tv's in every frikken room (which will be coming down, but I'm living with them vs having gaping holes in the wall), and there's no way patched texture jobs ever look right.
I HATE textured walls more than pretty much anything you can do to a house (even wallpaper borders and white vinyl windows!). When I bought my old condo, I insisted that it be put in the contract that all of the walls would be smooth. They did it for no charge and later told me they should have charged more. I'm slowly getting rid of the texture in my house (the ceilings are the worst) but it's expensive and creates a huge mess. Get it the way you want it from the beginning and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle and $$.
In my market, you don't have any other option than the basic texture they do. It costs way too much for builders in my area to pay for a flat, perfect wall. The texture, as you mentioned, is there to help cover imperfections. The first time I saw a flat wall was in the Mid-West, and it looked dumb to me. In my market, when you see a flat wall, it means someone removed wallpaper and forgot to texture because they didn't want the extra step, and you can see every imperfection in that wall. Looks bad, in my opinion.
I live in the same area as FalconheadWest (Texas), and sadly this is true. I absolutely HATE the textured walls. I am from the Northeast and could not understand why every house had them. Even new, low-end construction where I'm from doesn't have textured walls, so I can't imagine it's all that hard to do.
This is a depressing thread. Where I live (Midwest metro area) textured walls are not really a thing -yet.
But, then again, textured ceilings weren't a thing, and then they were (to hide imperfections) and as such sadly I have textured ceilings (new build, not quite 10 years old).
Interestingly, I was just talking with a drywaller and he said the builders (in this area) are back to swinging away from textured ceilings. Too bad/late for me.
I hate my textured ceilings (not popcorn, some other floppy/mop head they splat on your ceiling to make a pattern) with a passion, so I don't think I'd tolerate a textured wall trend very well.
As far as flat walls showing marks, um, yes - because you've damaged the walls. A good paint can hold up to some amount of abuse, but if you're moving a heavy piece of furniture down the stairs (as we've been known to do) and you accidentally hit the wall, yes - there will be a scuff/dent/ding.
That's what spackle is for, and having small amounts of your paint colors for "touch-ups", which are not generally noticeable.
Unless of course you're spackling a hole the size of a volkswagon, and then you should be actually putting new drywall up (and taping and mudding) and not just using spackle.
But for screw/nail holes and minor dents, a bit of spackle, light sand, paint -good as new.
Sorry- calling this total Horse S#!T! If the finishers (I'll use the term loosely) are worth anything, there should be no more sanding than usual. Besides, the true cost difference is negligible.
As has been stated previously, textured walls seems to be a more regional thing. In reality it's a financial/time thing.
Could not agree more ! Getting a drywall joints smooth is a simple process. In my opinion if the builder insists on textured walls to 'cover up imperfections' then most likely ALL of his work is not up to standards.
A friend just built a house in Lakeland, Florida. The builder would only do walls with an orange peel finish. I live in Atlanta, lived for a time in Savannah, grew up in New Jersey and just bought a house in Tennessee. All I have ever had are smooth walls.
I'm from Minnesota. When I moved to Texas I saw a lot of homes with the textured walls. I had never really seen that much of it in Minnesota except for some sort of short lived fad of slathered on texture mixed with rough cedar, "the barn look". Even saw some with hay stuck in the plaster work.
The textured stuff I saw in Texas was more "refined" looking, even, not too intrusive. It was in all of the more newly built homes everywhere. How I longed to see smooth walls again. I know one friend who spent weeks standing the texture off bathroom walls because she wanted to wallpaper. I don't know if she ever finished it.
I have since moved back to Minnesota.
I had my husband do a texture on the basement living area of our home when we built out that room. It definitely hide a lot of imperfections, we did it ourselves and are total amateurs. But I would think a experienced drywall guy can get a good smooth wall without putting gooped up texture on.
It's probably the same school that invented popcorn ceilings, which I hate, and I have. I have been tempted to get a scrapper many times and go to work. But I did have to do a ceiling repair in small bathroom and I spent a week scrapping and patching the mess. Ended going on you tube to find a video on how to do a light texture on ceiling. Turned out OK but that experience keeps me from scrapping the whole house to get rid of the popcorn.
IN my area of TX the TUSCAN look was strong for a decade or more--with very heavily textured walls--some places had such strong swirls you had to be careful leading against the wall--you could poke yourself with the edges of the texture...
That "look" has fallen off but you can "age" a house when you see the MLS photos of some interiors
We did bathrooms in FL and had to have wallpaper removed in one and new Sheetrock in some areas around the tub so had to finish the drywall--I prefer minimal texture--the guy was good--I knew someone whose house had kind of finish I liked...I took some photos of it to show him and he did good job recreating it...
Pretty smooth with minimal lines--
When we had water damage from toilet leak the insurance company wanted the wallpaper removed to prevent mildew/mold -- we had just had them painted over when we bought the house 5 yrs before--they were able to remove w/o tearing the Sheetrock and they just sprayed some very light orange peel and knocked it down
--the house was built in the 70s and it just seemed wrong to add a detail that seemed out of context for it..
IN my area of TX the TUSCAN look was strong for a decade or more--with very heavily textured walls--some places had such strong swirls you had to be careful leading against the wall--you could poke yourself with the edges of the texture...
That "look" has fallen off but you can "age" a house when you see the MLS photos of some interiors
The Tuscan look wasn't that heavy. The "skip trowel" was a fairly thick texturing and if tips broke off, you would have a polka dotted wall.
But for the most part, probably 95+% of houses have the orange peel or knock-down texture that just hides blemishes and blends in.
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