Websites for drywallers.

Less than you are picturing, if it is done right. We seal the work area with zip walls, mask doorways and vents, protect floors, and sand with HEPA-vacuum-assisted sanders instead of open pole sanding wherever we can. There will still be some fine dust — this is drywall — but you should not be finding it in the kitchen three rooms away.

Compound needs to dry fully between coats, so a typical room is three visits over three to five days depending on humidity. Basements and winter jobs run slower. Rushing primer onto damp compound is how you get flashing and joints that show up a month later, so we would rather take the extra day.

Because the crack is a symptom. Cracks that radiate from door and window corners are seasonal movement, and they need mesh tape and a wider float, not more filler. Long straight cracks along a ceiling can mean truss uplift, which needs a floating corner detail. We diagnose the cause first, otherwise you are just paying to repaint the same line every year.

Level 4 finishes the joints and screws and is fine under most eggshell or satin paints and any texture. Level 5 adds a full skim coat over the entire surface. You want Level 5 on large flat walls, anywhere strong side light rakes across the surface, and under flat or dark paint — otherwise every joint quietly telegraphs through.

Usually, yes — knockdown and orange peel we match on a test board first so you can approve it before it goes on the ceiling. Old sparkle stipple is the hard one, and sometimes a flat skim of the whole ceiling looks better than a patch that never quite disappears. We will tell you honestly which case you are in.

If the house was built or renovated before about 1990, get a sample tested before anyone scrapes it — textured ceilings of that era can contain asbestos. Testing is inexpensive. If it comes back positive, that becomes an abatement job for a licensed remediation contractor, not a drywall job, and we will say so rather than take the work.