Love a smooth finish all the way. I know people love them but we are not fans of ceiling patterns in a residential setting. We are however planning a soffit over our kitchen island.

We have always had smooth drywall (or plaster in our old homes) for walls and ceilings and did it in our build with 2 exceptions - painted plank vault in the LR and natural knotty cypress in the entry.

Boy would I LOVE to have smooth finished walls and ceiling. Alas, here in FL it's not to be. They only know from textured walls and ceilings, so I picked the least offensive, a light orange peel.

Smooth ceilings are a $$$ upcharge around here. We went with a stamped flower type design that is knocked down.

cpartist, why not? Is it just "not done" in Florida?

Smooth, smooth, smooth! It's a choice one will never regret!

Interestingly, it was not until I moved to the USA that I realized difference in finishes. Mostly in Canada, the walls are always smooth. I never heard of "orange peel" wall finishes until I relocated to the lower 48. However, most of our ceilings are textured and back in the good old days " popcorn ceilings" were everywhere.

Is there a cost difference between smooth walls and smooth ceilings?

Smooth

PG, smooth is more exacting. With something like orange peel, they just spray on the finish after they tape and spackle the walls.

Momdino, I have no idea why it's not done in FL? I am from NY and all we see in NY is smooth walls and ceilings so it never occurred to me that there was anything else until we bought a place down here. I was told by our GC at the time that finding people who can do smooth finish is too difficult down here.

Smooth all the way. It's not typical here, and we paid a premium for it in our last house but it was so worth it. In our new build we are doing smooth except for the two vaulted rooms which will be wood paneled.

It's similar to full gauge plaster, skim coat plaster and level 4 or 5 drywall finishing, and its availability and relative cost as it varies regionally.

It seemed to me from watching This Old House that in the New England Area skim coat plaster was about a 50% upcharge over level 5 drywall finishing.

If you can get someone to do it where I live it's probably more like a 200% or more upcharge. And I got an estimate for plaster on board to replace the same in one bedroom of my small house and if I extrapolate that out for the entire house it would cost about $100K just to plaster the interior of the entire house. (And one entire floor is mostly wood and glass) Since people are still doing it in some places I can't imagine that it is so expensive everywhere.

So in Florida, you probably aren't even getting Level 4 on the ceilings because they are camouflaging the seams with texture.

I don't think you get Level 4 in lots of places here, either, I think it's like Level 3.5. I walk in lots of houses where you can see every seam on all the ceilings, because "smooth" is not that smooth, anymore.

P G, around here smooth walls are standard unless you go with a very cheap tracht home. I have never been in a new build in this area with smooth ceilings because they cost so much and, like CP said, finding someone capable and willing to do them is near impossible.

I spent years living with popcorn and other textures. SMOOTH CEILINGS for me.

The egregious texture in my Ryland Homes tract house wasn't enough to cover up their lousy drywall job anyhow.

FL is knockdown as CP noted, all I've seen even in high dollar homes.

The only thing you won't get tired of in a couple of years is smooth...

Im not sure Ive ever seen a smooth ceiling. I think knockdown is conserved the smooth version in Minnesota?

We went with smooth walls and ceilings. After years of living in FL with knock-down and popcorn, I wanted classic smooth. It took me a lot of prep work to get them that way- I used steel studs since lumber is so prone to warp, and I strapped and leveled the ceiling so they'd have an even plane to attach the drywall to. The underside of the trusses was anything but flat! It was worth it, though.

Amazing regional variation and I think a lot of difference in tolerance for imperfections. In this area, all are smooth and I haven't been in houses where I saw a big issue in the ceiling. Popcorn is probably not done anymore. Back in 1999 on a basic tract, smooth was about $.40 a sqft upgrade. I've not seen it done after that. This was for a $150k 1600 sqft home and that included lot - even accounting for inflation, that was cheap. Built 5 years ago and paid less than $2 a sqft total for drywall - smooth everywhere.

Thank you everyone for all of the replies. I have certainly learned a lot. I am also in an area where everything is smooth finished(except ceilings). I have never heard of levels of drywall or charging more for a smooth finish ceiling. The contractor and I just had a brief discussion to meet to discuss the ceiling finish(hopefully drywalling starts today!). He mentioned sometimes its hard to get a perfect looking smooth ceiling in a large open space. He did not mention it was a cost increase etc. so fingers crossed its not!

If the framing is done well, a competent drywall finisher will provide you with the same level of quality on the walls and the ceilings, although smooth does require more skill and time than doing a pretty good job and throwing texture on top to hide defects. Don't be surprised if the contractor says the cost of smooth wall is higher.

I battled bitterly with our builder for smooth walls and ceilings (in Florida). He said the drywallers would not be capable of doing a smooth finish that would satisfy us. I spoke with the drywallers and asked them to do their very best. They saw it as a challenge and did a pretty good job. It's not perfect, but the result is far better and more suitable for the style of house than textured finishes would have been. I think the drywallers were proud to have been trusted to do the job and with the results. No upcharge but we did show our gratitude!!

Smooth. We have vaulted ceilings in our open floor plan. In our build all ceilings are smooth. The drywaller did an excellent job on the smooth vaulted ceiling, no imperfections at all, perfection. There was no up charge for smooth.

I had smooth in my last house and really didnt like it. It needs to be perfect to look good and ours wasn't perfect. New house has a sand paint finish which I like much better.

Its a regional issue but when you want something different it often becomes a matter of skill. Where a higher level of skill is required the subs simply learn how to do it.

In the Boston area there is a 400 year old tradition of smooth plaster that can be painted or wallpapered. Today taped drywall is generally a DIY method; professionals use a skim coat finish called "veneer plaster" on an absorbent drywall base called "blueboard". For decades it has been cheaper than taped drywall because it is so much faster to finish (no sanding). Now its about the same cost and if you don't tell the contractor you want taped drywall you will get veneer plaster. The veneer is only 1/16" thick but its very hard. The finish is flawless and fewer coats of paint are needed and they last longer.

Unfortunately, you only have to drive 50 miles south west of Boston to find builders who have never heard of it.

Nevertheless, its well worth the effort to search for blueboard installers in you area.

You still have to tape blueboard, but you're right, the skim coat goes over a wider area. And you are right, nobody outside of NE seems to have ever heard of the stuff.

Regular drywall can be installed and finished nicely faster than blueboard in my opinion. It just takes people who know what they are doing.