When I was looking, I just googled different types of textured walls. Our house is getting the orange peel texture on the walls.

Our architect said it was hard to find someone...with the skill set needed to finish seams for smooth walls.

So no one on the West Coast knows how to tape and finish drywall. Amazing.

See here and [here[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/textured-walls-phbr0lbl-bl~l_79690) for scads of textured wall examples, mostly as accent walls and ceilings.

For whole house use, typically less extreme examples are used, particularly "knockdown."

Knockdown texture drywall finishing.

The knock down is what I had in one of my homes. It never felt unique, just like every other wall seen in primarily new home builds. Was easy to paint though and little maintenance.

My preference is textured walls similar to the old plaster. Not extreme texture. Suggest looking at some homes through your designer and get a feel for what is available. I personally have repaired mine and can't imagine there isn't a tradesman who does this. A whole house would require skills for such, but those who have it love the job and wouldn't let you down. Not sure what the contractor meant about skimming walls with clean seams. This is done all the time by finishers with many levels of experience.

Google "drywall finish levels.". We have "light orange peel" in our current house and I like it! I've also seen lots of "knockdown" that is not as pronounced as worthy's photo. It doesn't quite fit the style of our new house so we will have a smooth drywall finish. We are in California too, SF Bay Area, so there must be some skilled finishers around! Perhaps Shawna is just trying to save you some money -- we had to be talked into the smooth finish because there was a noticeable price difference.

I'm from the east coast and don't like them...get good rockers who know how to tape....for some reason, it seems most of the rockers in our area are Canadian....

I mean textured walls are fine if they fit with the particular style of your home...something tuscan or old world or southwest, but I wouldn't take it is as requirement....

I would also think that if the walls crack due to earthquake, a smooth wall is easier to patch than a textured one...

(I think I'm getting old and stuck in my ways....)

We are in CA (bay area) and we were originally planning to do "orange peel" texture but I really wanted a smooth finish. We are in the build process and when they started doing the drywall I decided to upgrade to smooth wall. The cost of upgrading to smooth walls was high (5500 dollars for a 2250 Sqft house). We decided it was the worth the upgrade. You can get no texture walls but it is going to cost you more.

It has got to be regional. Where we are at it's common to have smooth walls but textured ceilings. I am not sure I have seen anything different around unless it's a very old home and then the walls are textured with that rainbow pattern and the ceiling is popcorn. Go figure.

We have smooth walls here in Alberta as standard. I've never seen textured except on TV. Looks cool. Our ceilings here are usually popcorn in lower end or older homes. Splatter textured (same as knockdown minus the troweling to flatten it) in most mid-grade new homes, sometimes knockdown but usually it is an upgrade. We are paying $1000 to upgrade to knockdown from splatter. Smooth ceilings are rare and several thousand to upgrade to.

It's funny, but we call the knockdown texture here California knockdown.

We are in Florida. We almost went with a builder who insisted on knockdown. I don't care for it. We have knockdown in the garage. Around here, orange peel texture is ubiquitous. At first I didn't care for the orange peel (raised in the Midwest), but then we repainted our whole house with two coats of a premium eggshell paint, and it was much better. A few layers of paint seemed to "soften" the texture. I personally would do whatever I had to do to not have knockdown texture, but orange peel is fine.

Askshars_mom- are your smooth walls the type with a thin layer of plaster? That was one of the options we were given. Here we just paint the drywall-after smoothing the tape on the seams.

The builders I have talked to here said that most people paint right onto the drywall like cz said above. I have one room in my house that is like that and it's the worse looking room in the house with kids. All of my other rooms are plaster. In my new build I at least want a layer of something but it's a big upcharge. I fear my walls are going to look hideous after a few years.

cz_scrap, no thin layer of plaster just paint after smoothing the tape on seams. They said it costed more because they have to more levels of sanding and mudding and also requires a higher level of skill.

Our builder is going to have the drywall crew spray some samples in the garage or on scrap drywall. I don't really like textured walls it but it's not worth the $$ to get smooth finish when I'm sure there's a light texture I can live with.

cz_scrap, what did you end up going with? I too am on the central coast and I have to decide by next week. Is there anywhere you can go look at walls to see samples? Thanks!