Ask three contractors for a drywall price and you can get three very different numbers for what sounds like the same job. Most of that spread is the finish level. It is a real, defined scale — levels 0 through 5 — and the difference between level 4 and level 5 across a whole house is days of labour and a lot of compound. Knowing which one your room needs is the single most useful thing a homeowner can learn about drywall.
Levels 0 through 2 are stages, not destinations. Level 0 is board hung and nothing else. Level 1 is tape embedded in compound at the joints, and it is what you see above a suspended ceiling or in an attic — places nobody looks. Level 2 adds one coat over the tape and the fastener heads; it is right under tile, in a garage, or as the base for a heavy texture. If somebody quotes you a level 2 for a living room, that is not a bargain, it is the wrong product.
Level 3 is one coat over tape and beads, and it is the correct base for a heavy sprayed texture — knockdown or a coarse orange peel. The texture is doing the work of hiding the surface, so a third coat underneath it is money you will never see again. This is a perfectly honest finish for a textured wall, and it is where a lot of Western North Carolina houses sit.
Level 4 is the default for a painted wall: two separate coats over the tape and beads, each wider than the last, with the fastener heads spotted twice and the whole thing sanded flat. Under a flat or an eggshell paint, in a room with normal light, a good level 4 is invisible. This is what most rooms should get and what most of our residential work is.
Level 5 adds a thin skim coat over the entire surface, not just the joints, so the whole wall has one uniform porosity and there is no difference in texture between the board paper and the compound. It costs more because it is another pass of material across every square foot plus the sanding that follows. It is worth it in exactly one situation: where light will rake across the wall. A hallway with a window at one end, a vaulted room with big south-facing glass, a stairwell with a skylight, or any wall getting a satin or semi-gloss paint. In those rooms a level 4 will show joint banding once the light is right, and no amount of paint fixes it afterwards.
The mistake we see most often is paying for a level 5 through a whole house. Bedrooms, closets, hallways without end windows, laundry rooms — none of them need it. Spend that money on level 5 in the two or three rooms where the light is going to be a problem, and put level 4 everywhere else. A good drywall contractor should tell you that rather than quoting the biggest number they can defend.
One more thing worth knowing: the paint matters as much as the finish. Flat paint hides; satin and semi-gloss reveal. If you have your heart set on an eggshell or satin through an open-plan room with a lot of glass, tell your drywall contractor before they start, because it changes the level the room needs. It is a five-minute conversation that prevents an expensive argument later.
Not sure what your room needs? Call Leo Drywall at (828) 470-2243. We'll come and look at the light in the room, tell you honestly which level it needs and why, and put the price in writing — in English or Spanish, free either way.