Smooth is always better from a touchup and painting aspect. Textured is considered to be a builder's grade technique here. It allows a builder to use unskilled labor to apply the drywall and then the poor workmanship can be hidden under the texture. The only skilled labor he has to pay for is the guy with the gun and taping knife. Don't confuse a plastered wall with a textured one. Skim coating blueboard with plaster leaves a perfectly smooth finish and is about as close as you can get to the old lathe and horsehair plaster of old. There just aren't very many craftsmen outside of the Bostom region who are even familiar with the process, let alone have the skill to do it. There's also Venetian plaster, which if it's a true plastered finish and not a faux finish, contains marble dust in it, and is burnished to a subtle gloss. It's not "textured" either. It's a very labor intensive upscale finish that is also hard to find applicators to do.

Hi, I just read this and wanted to give you a little reassurance. I live in Denver too and I can tell you that your issue is the norm here, not the exception. If your house was built in Denver during that time, it is going to have asbestos in the texture and joint compound. The last owner probably didn't know because they didn't have the same rules for testing before doing remodeling work back then. Or they did know and didn't disclose it to you. But it would cost you a lot of time and expense to prove it. The important thing is to not freak out. There are lots of homes in Denver that are in the same boat. We are in a super tight housing market here and your home is probably still very desirable. If you sold right now, you would probably take no hit what so ever. I friend of mine just listed their home with asbestos and led paint in Denver for 1.5 million. Just be sure when you disclose it, that you keep your disclosure brief and include that the areas that tested positive for asbestos were professionally removed and remediated. Something like: "Asbestos was found in the kitchen area during a remodel and was professionally removed and remediated." Our disclosure forms in Colorado include a box that says "I don't know" if you really don't know for sure if there is asbestos in other areas of the house because they have not been tested, check the "I don't know box" for asbestos on the disclosure. Then write in "Asbestos was found and professionally removed from the kitchen during a remodel." Then you are providing all the facts and leaving it up to the potential buyer if they want to do additional testing after they purchase the home or do any remodeling. But seriously, don't feel bad. Your home is still great.

Lowes, sells a tool, called a mud stomper, that will do that texture for you. It is a rounded brush type thing and comes with a short handled pole, but you can buy a longer handle and do it all from the floor, if necessary. It works very easily. Your texture, looks a bit less than what mine is, so your mud is put on a bit lighter than mine. The tool, is what makes the pattern on your sheetrock. You cant tell, the repair from what was there, on mine. You can find directions for using it online. Good Luck

We were installing the vanity and doing the tiling so a lot was going on in the bathroom. Anything that hit the wall left a dent, even lightly, and I can scratch the wall with my finger nail leaving a mark. I misspoke in my post and he actually finished it with a light weight compound which is why our walls are so malleable. The drywall is brand new. We gutted our bathroom and started from scratch on the remodel.