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Remodeling Design Dilemma Home Decorating

Match textured walls or smooth them out?

last year

We bought a 2,500 sq ft house that has textured walls. We are going to do a few renovations that will require new drywall in a few places (bathroom, fireplace, etc). Can you actually match the texture and not notice any difference? Or will it be noticeable and therefore better to make the walls smooth in the entire house? We prefer smooth walls, but 2,500 sq ft is a lot to smooth out. We are going to paint the whole house interior too.

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Comments (7)

PRO
BeverlyFLADeziner
last year
last modified: last year
I have textured walls in my home but not in the bathroom areas. That is often done here in Florida because people often install wallpaper in bathroom areas.
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elcieg
last year
last modified: last year
Could we see the listing pictures?

Textured walls aren't so great. However, if you repaint them in a flat finish, lighter color, decorate with color and great fabrics, the walls will fade back. Add velvet, add a kilim, hang a great mirror.

If we had photos, I would suggest that one of the walls, somewhere, behind bed, behind sofa, you panel over.

Then there is ceiling color. Paint all the walls in a flat white. Don't know the style of your house or your decor, but each room (if a defined room) could have a different color ceiling.

Ceilings are a wall and as long as the main walls are one color, every ceiling can be different.

Or, you can design around the wall texture...Southwestern? Add some "good" faux beams.
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Comments (31)
Agree with Nicole here. It doesn't matter what costs more, what is premium and what covers what. It all comes down to what you like. So what if it is a contractor's way to cut costs? It looks nice. I think we are caught up with the cost of doing something compared to what it looks like, as if something that costs more must be the best thing to do and the best looking. Personally, I love to see a knockdown texture on my ceilings with large crown molding. Plain, flat, non-textured ceilings might be considered "high-end," and more costly, but they are, in my opinion, rather boring. Texture, metal, wood, or whatever (minus the popcorn, even though some still like it) on a ceiling adds interest and beauty. Just because knockdown is the excuse for contractors to cover up flaws is no reason to "knock" it! I remember when popcorn was the thing and bathroom ceilings were flat because in the 80s, people liked to wallpaper the ceilings, which could be considered a "texture." My 2 cents.
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Spackled over textured wall so surfaces don't match
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Comments (2)
Knockdown is easy to duplicate ... try the technique on some scraps of cardboard first. Dilute some drywall mud until it is the texture of sour cream - holds a nice peak. NEED: drywall mud, big coarse sponge, WIDE (10in or larger) drywall blade, clean cloth. Spread a bit of the compound onto a damp coarse sponge. Dab it on the wall where you need texture in an irregular pattern - repeat until the area is covered with peaks of mud alternating with some open areas. When the peaks are stiffening, but not dry (stiff pie dough texture), draw the drywall blade across the patch in one quick scrape. Hold the knife at about a 45-degree angle. Knock the peaks down! Wipe the blade clean between scrapes. The harder you push the blade against the wall the thinner and flatter the knockdown will be. Let it dry, prime it with drywall primer, and paint it. IMPORTANT: Overlap into the already textured area by a foot or more, fading out erratically, and even create some random clouds of new texture. You need to break up the outline of the bald spot.
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Smooth or knockdown textured walls
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Comments (17)
All the walls in my home are smooth except for my downstairs basement living area that we finished ourselves and did the texture ourselves. It a more casual room, tv and kids play room. We did the knockdown texture ourselves with a thing that splattered the texture on then smoothed down. It's more random than orange peel but about the same "depth". It's more randomness makes it easy to repair any damage. I wouldn't want it my whole home but like it in that one room. I probably would dislike it immensely if in every room. But..if you ever want to do wall paper don't get it. Texture was in alot of new homes in Texas where we lived for a while, bathrooms too. I knew of several people who wanted wall paper later and spent weeks trying to smooth out the walls, yuck. The finish I have is looks like the skip trowel technique on this YouTube video, skip to end of video. https://youtu.be/C_cUnSEXnrM
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Bathroom walls - smooth, textured, paint or paper???
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Comments (6)
Until 10 years ago, I never lived in a house with anything except smooth walls, then 10 years ago, we bought a 3-year-old house in California with textured walls - I hate them. Then we bought a 40-year-old second-home, fixer-upper in Texas, and it has those same, awful walls. I guess they're cheap and quick, like so much that's done these days. I may have to follow my heart and have smooth walls and paint in those bathrooms.
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PRO
Sabrina Alfin Interiors
last year
I would do smooth walls in the bathrooms for now. Then someday when you feel you have the $ for it, have the other walls re-done to smooth them out. It's not crucial, and you'll probably get used to it. Agree with the comment above that you should go with flat or eggshell paint for the textured walls so you don't notice the texture as much.
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kandrewspa
last year
I wouldn't go to the trouble and expense of creating smooth walls everywhere. You will have to ask the contractor whether they can replicate the finish on modified walls, but if you have to change one wall in a room to smooth you better change all of them in that room. That is probably why Beverly says she has smooth walls in her bathrooms but nowhere else. The bathrooms were remodeled.
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PRO
Beth H. :
last year
that's an orange peel texture.

If you're redoing a bathroom, you can do smooth. or even a bedroom. anything that is seperated from the other walls is fine.
PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
last year
IMO pay whatever it costs to get rid of textured walls the reason for them is drywall finishers can't do smooth properly . They can be skim coated usually and for sure an improvment IMO
0
Fori
last year
Entire rooms need to be the same but it's okay to not match throughout the whole house.

I like that texture, actually, but it sure is a PITA to patch. :)

Textured does not mean cheap or low skilled. Maybe it does where PCC lives, but on the west coast especially, it's based on what was trendy when the house was built, and textures were trendy often. It goes better with some house styles more than others, too.

I had a plaster guy repair the funky texture on my repaired kitchen walls once. His dad had done the original plaster work in my house in the 1950s which was kind of neat and it was a labor intensive process. On plaster. In a not-cheap house.

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