What level of finish was specified in your contract? Level 4? 5?

Unfortunately, the (home-made) contract is silent on this point. The scope of work (legally part of the contract) says: "Apply smooth finish to all walls and ceilings except garage."

There are as many definitions of "expensive," "custom," and "home" as there are posters.

But I agree, the photos show a pretty average level of finish and certainly not "expensive custom home" level.

But what to do?

Nail pops should obviously be fixed. I cant imagine anyone disagreeing. Some of the other issues will be harder to fix especially since nothing is in witing.

Good luck.

Thanks, I agree it is vague. To put it in perspective, the house is costing us about $260 per square foot, NOT counting the land, the architect, and a million other small things. The budget for drywall was about $17,000.

Actually, it is about $290 per square foot.

I can’t really tell what’s happening in the last photo -is the wall ripple-y or is it an uneven amount of glossiness to the paint?

But everything else can certainly be fixed. They’d likely need to do a round of sanding to the painted areas that need work, then a new round of adding mud to fill it the low spots/smooth out the corner bump, etc. It looks like not enough joint compound was used, and they didn’t smooth out far enough away from the seams for it to be visually seamless.

"To put it in perspective, the house is costing us about $260 per square foot"

Cost does not play a role unfortunately. Since a finish level is not described in the contract you are about out of luck on all but the nail pops.

Most of this is fairly minor and would have been addressed at the time of paint. Have you asked the builder? I would mark them with blue paint and have the paint crew come back and address them.

what if this were specified as Level 4..... would it be acceptable?

I wouldn't call that an "average level of finish" most items in the pictures should be corrected.

In the last picture, the wavy surface looks like a flaw in the drywall itself, you find them from time to time on drywall sold in the box stores.

I know that the light can bring out many imperfections but if you see these issues with the naked eye they should be fixed, like most obvious things like nail pops, tape showing at wall transitions or bad sanding job, ridges near switched because they didn't sand it properly should be fixed.

Certain things like shadowing on longwall span or ceilings during a different time of day, etc that are common... unless the customer requested a level 5 finish and paid for, in that case, the entire wall and ceiling surfaces should be skim coated to eliminate all that.

Good luck

Absent a reference to a particular quality standard in your contract, I suggest you use the Residential Construction Performance Guidelines for Professional Builders and Remodelers which is published by the National Association of Home Builders as a guide. Per those guidelines, drywall defects must be visible from a distance of 6 ft under normal lighting conditions to be considered defects.

You have home warranty guidelines in regard to what is considered to be a deficiency and not and what builder responsobility is... at the closing, you should receive/d a booklet.

In regard to drywall:

7.2 Drywall

Hairline cracks are not unusual. Cracks in interior gypsum board or other drywall materials exceeding 1/16-inch in width are deficiencies.

Builder/Seller shall repair cracks that are greater than 1/16-inch in width and touch up paint to match as closely as possible, one time only. Such conditions should be reported near the end of the first year of Limited Warranty coverage to allow for normal movement in Home.

Nail pops, blisters, or other blemish is visible on finished wall or ceiling.

Slight defects such as occasional nail pops, seam lines and cracks are common to gypsum wallboard installation. Blisters in tape, cracks over door and window frames and over archways, excess compound in joints, trowel marks, nail popping, and exposed corner beads are deficiencies. Nail pops are a defect only when there are signs of spackle compound cracking or falling away.

Builder/Seller will repair such defects to acceptable tolerances, and touch up paint to match as closely as possible, one time only. Such conditions should be reported near the end of the first year of Limited Warranty coverage to allow for normal settlement of the Home.

Depressions or slight mounds at nail heads are not considered deficiencies. Builder/Seller is not responsible for nail pops or blisters that are not visible, such as those covered by wallpaper.

Cracked corner bead, excess joint compound, trowel marks, or blisters in tape joints.

Cracked or exposed corner bead, trowel marks, excess joint compound, or blisters in drywall tape, are deficiencies.

Builder/Seller will repair to meet Construction Performance Guidelines, and touch up paint to match as closely as possible, one time only. Such conditions should be reported near the end of the first year of Limited Warranty coverage to allow for normal settlement of the Home.

There is a distinct difference between quality defects which are punch list items and defects which appear during the warranty period. Correction of quality items at completion (i.e., punch list items) should not count toward the "one time only" repairs made during the warranty period.

IMO that is an orange peel finish not smooth in my book. I live in Canada we always get a smooth finish unless ask for something different so it is standard not a special finish. IMO you did not get what you asked for so it needs to be done right and skim coated now to get smooth.IMO the textured walls that seem to be the norm in parts of the US are just a way for a drywall finisher to do crappy work and hide it in a texture and this is an example of not even doing that.

Update: Our General Contractor called the drywall sub back to fix the errors. After a day and a half, they said things were perfect, and left (I couldn't be on hand to inspect).

Here are some examples of the "perfect" they left behind:

We are almost ready to move in and this is infuriating. The sub-contractor just doesn't seem to have the skill to do the job. we are already way over budget, and over one year (on a 2500 sq ft house). What to do????

ps. I found some earlier pictures of their work: does it look like there is enough mud for a Level four smooth ?

The last set of images you posted look a nice professional taping job, but obvipously the quality of that job shows after the walls been painted.

In the last set of images with painted surfaces that you posted, you can tell they did a bad sanding job.

In some images, you see too much mud left on the taped joints makes them apear crowned and the center of the seam is left higher than the surface of the wall and that is quite obvious. After the came and touched everything up they should have smooth everything out and wet-sanded everything and you would have a beautiful flat surface.

The third picture from the top (with little holes over surface) that called pitting, it's the air bubbles that were not properly filled or popped open after sanding. They usualy result from overmixing/undermixing the mud. Another reason why you get the bubbles is when not enough pressure is applied when going over the wet mud with a knife. In your case after the surface been painted to fix this all they had to do is apply a thin finish coat of mud over the area, sand it and prime it before repainting.

Everything you show can easily be fixed, unfortunately people who they sand to correct this are incompetent and don't know what they doing and only create more work to fix this again.

Demand from your GC to send people who know what they doing and don't let them out of the house untill they get it right. Maybe instead of taping crew, he should sand a painter, with quick drying compounds today, they can fix this and have it primed and painted in no time.

Good luck.

IMO this is not in any way a smooth finish to the walls . I live in Canada smooth is the finish we get and if we want texture then we pay extra . IMO textured walls are done by lazy drywall finishers just like textured ceiling were. That is IMO a mess but if this was not spelled out on a contract IMO that is on you..

Even if smooth wasn't spelled out and this should have been textured, it wouldn't be acceptable with those taped joints. Nowhere in my house with orange peel texture do I have joints that look like that.

They should have given you options for different levels and discussed the differences in finish and price. The job they did does look lazy/sloppy. If they refuse to fix at least the worst bits, you might ask if they would feel comfortable with you posting those images of their work on google reviews for their business.

... you couldn't be there while work was being done. I would make it some kind of priority to be there or have a friend/family member there while work was being done. This is just basic good sense. How many opportunities do you think they're going to give you? They send some worker out who may or may not care about your issues, and no one's there, so the worker puts in minimal work and leaves early.

The quality of the fixes you're going to get is going to depend largely on YOUR capacity to pressure the contractor and supervise the workers they send. I don't mean to stand over their shoulders. I mean to offer the worker a cup of coffee or bottle of water, a snack or lunch, and be present and walk around and check up on the work during the day, and go over it WITH the worker before the worker leaves. Have your cell phone to take photos, put blue tape tabs on the wall in the places you want fixed, and accommodate the workers! Tip them! Use some people skills.