There really is not a 'wait time' for painting drywall. As soon as the mud is completely dry, it can be painted. It is true that you can use a flat paint to prime, but this is rarely the best choice. Flat paints do not seal. If you are going with a washable paint for a topcoat, a primer is best. If you are concerned about the Aura, then go with the Regal....two coats of Regal eggshell on top of a Fresh Start primer, Super Spec Flat or Muresco on the ceiling. For the trim, I would sand first to dull the sheen so that the primer has something to stick to, prime with BIN or an acrylic bonding primer followed by two coats of Waterborne Satin Impervo, Aura semi gloss, Pro Classic, C2, Muralo, etc...lots of good trim paint choices out there.

Sombreuil mongrel......yes, he used Durabond but I'm not sure if he did it adequately (I don't know anything about it). I know he used it for the first round of mudding (mixed with the ready-to-use drywall compound) but after that I think he just used the premixed. Our garage is not heated but it is insulated. The walls still look great 12 years on. I hope we didn't make a mistake by using drywall in our poolhouse. Anyway, I was at the paint store (supposedly experts) and they didn't think exterior or interior made a difference in this application and told me that oil primers are not what they used to be (they've taken out a lot of what made them so good because of new environmental laws and for lower toxicity, etc.) and that now they are not much better than the acrylic ones. His demeanor made me lack confidence in what he was saying (he didn't seem to know much when I asked for details), but I went ahead and bought an exterior acrylic primer. Someone tell me its going to be OK because I've just cut in the edges!

I recently removed popcorn ceilings from my entire house (all rooms including closets, bathrooms, hallways.) The painter we hired, had his men scrape off the popcorn then smeared some sort of texture on the ceiling. After that they put on one coat of paint. So now, the ceilings have a swirly texture (which is common in Florida). They also sprayed something on the walls which produced an orange-peel effect and then painted. I know they didn't prime the ceilings. They used this stucco-type stuff and painted. It looks good. Jane

I'm not a professional and it depends on the size of the area to be repaired, but it's pretty easy to cut out damaged dry wall and then mud the patch seams. You want to do whatever will maximize the clean, level surface. And, yes, you will need to feather and sand your mud until it is dead level. I wouldn't paint the mudded, repaired drywall before tiling, at least, I never have. And I've never primed drywall before mudding it. If you've only read or watched videos, be sure you practice. If your repair area is large, even if just 'paper', maybe hire somebody?