RM, Are you clear about the advice that Billl gave you? It sounds as if you might not be. What he said about the window frames sticking out 1/4" too far meant that the sides of the window frame (literally the sides of the window, that are at right angles to the sashes holding the glass, the sticking-out edges of which you can not see when the trim is in place) were (after he had replaced the plaster with sheet rock) deeper than the plane of the installed sheet rock. He could have used two or more layers of sheet rock to build up the depth equal to the old plaster, or as he chose to do, he planed these edges down to meet the sheet rock evenly. He was not talking about planing the visible trim which is installed on top of the edges of the window frame and extends from there over and on to the plaster or sheet rock. The window trim bridges (and conceals) the joint between the edges of the window frame and the wall surface. That's why the window trim sticks up proud (as it is called) from the wall. It can only provide this bridge if the edges of the window frame and the overall plane of the wall covering are even. There is an excellent book on windows ( Working Windows) by Terry Meany, that you might find useful in grappling with complex construction, and nomenclature, of window frames. And I have a suggestion, I'd recommend emulating your user name's approach. Do your homework and understand what to do, what not to do and how to do each before you try to engage handymen, or semi-skilled home repair persons. Whatever you do, don't rely on the "professional" advice from workers with less knowledge, affection, or experience in old house renovations than you have. There are excellent resources on line (of course, tons of crappy info online, too); good print resources on the curatorial care of old houses, and of course a wealth of free advice here and on similar old-house positive fora. (Old House Web and Historic Homeworks are two very helpful and knowledgeable sources - Google 'em and post questions.) When I was a new old house owner, I figured that most workers knew more about houses renovations than I did. Most did, but only a few knew more about old house renovations than I did, which was next to nothing, at first. Luckily, I didn't have too much money to do renos right away, so I was spared making mistakes by not being able to pay workers. In the meantime I made it my business to learn about how my buildings were put together and, what others had done with similar structures. When I was finally ready to embark, I knew that many of the things I might have blythely embarked upon were really bad ideas. The best thing you can do for your house is clean it, study it, and learn about it. Only then would I suggest getting involved with workers. What I suggest is both money-saving (which you'll need as good old house work is never cheap) and absorbs all that new-house-I-gotta-make-it-mine-energy that everybody has right after they close. The handyman who got upset about you wanting to save money by demoing is exactly why you need to learn more about houses before you hire workers. But, please, use your energies to scrub the floors, or dig a garden, or something else, instead of demoing right off the bat. It's not that hard (but a much bigger mess than you can ever imagine, though, and once started you have to see it through to conclusion) but don't use it as a catharsis. It must be done in a deliberate manner, (I really like the "deconstruction" approach noted above) after careful consideration of whether it is the right thing to do. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Have you tried to remove the drywall from one small area to see what's underneath? Do you know by whom and under what circumstances it was installed? There may be some clues to be gained by investigating, or querying about it. Again, a case of the benefit of not just launching into it.

There might be a problem with adhesion by skim coating over a painted wall surface. For grip, you can get fiberglass mesh in 36" wide rolls. It is similar to the mesh tape for drywall seams only the mesh is a little heavier. You apply it to the wall like wallpaper using spray adhesive. Once that is up and adhered, you can skimcoat as Ventupete suggests. The mesh gives something for the skim coat to grab.

Yes, the screen cloth will cut through both paint and the patch. Don't press too hard with the screen cloth and pad though. Keep the pad flat on the wall and sand the hump down a little at a time, lightening pressure as you cross from patch to drywall ... coarse screen cloth can be aggressive in what it removes and you could end up with frayed drywall paper at the edge of the patch, making the whole thing look even worse. Once you have the patch sanded, you'll probably need to paint the entire wall; otherwise the smoothly sanded patch will show up like a neon sign next to the roller-pebbled painted surface. I'd suggest using a small 3" roller and interior latex primer to seal and prep the patch for standard latex paint. Then paint the entire wall with a standard 9" roller to even out the surface texture.

OMG - what a horrible job cutting the tile. Looks like he used nippers to clip the tile or his snap cutter's cutting wheel is still the original one from the 80's. "...How and where did you hire the handyman claiming to be a tile setter, was price the deciding factor?..." - Tundra I think this is a fair question myself. If you are budgeting a job that is priced buy the square foot, some times the added skilled work is ommited. A skilled installer like myself or Tundra come with proper tools and experience. Check out Tundra's photos online and you can see he is a tile ninja.... I think a diamond Riffling File and some time might fix it but best to replace the cut tile with new better cut tile. Placing cut tile in the field of view is tricky unless the installer uses care and proper tools to make it look nice. And really the Dal Tile Home Depot stock is not really Top Shelf product anyway. Could be the tools where good but the glazing crap.