Why drywall finish matters more than people think
Most drywall in Baltimore gets done to Level 3. That’s tape, two coats of mud, sand, paint. It’s fine on a textured wall. It looks rough as soon as you put a smooth wall next to a window with raking light.
Level 5 is a skim coat over the whole surface before primer. Every joint and screw disappears. It’s what you want on smooth-finish modern interiors, on accent walls, on anywhere the light hits the wall sideways. It costs more, usually $0.75 to $1.25 a square foot on top of base hang and finish, and on the right house it’s worth every dollar.
We do both. We just don’t pretend Level 3 is Level 5.
Residential repairs
Old rowhomes crack. The foundation moves, the plaster behind the drywall fails, the bathroom upstairs leaks and the ceiling below gets soft. Most of the drywall calls we get are repair work, not new install.
We patch, we texture-match, we feather it out so you can’t see the repair. Knockdown, orange peel, smooth, whatever the rest of the wall is, we match it.
Full-home rehabs
On full-home rehabs we hang and finish hundreds of sheets per project. Type X fire-rated assemblies where code requires it, resilient channel for soundproofing between units in row-home conversions, and demising walls done right. Hot-mud setting compound for fast turns, lightweight all-purpose for the final coats, Level 5 finish available on accent walls and any surface that catches raking light.
What we won’t do
We won’t hang drywall over a water-damaged ceiling without fixing the leak first. We won’t sand a finish without dust containment in an occupied house. We won’t call a Level 3 finish a Level 5.