You get what you pay for.....I've always preached it and now I'm falling victim to my own warning. I paid someone to finish my basement, and they did a decent job through the framing, rough-ins, and hanging the drywall. But then my guy's idea of quality really started to show. I had asked for a wall texture to match my upstairs (which I consider a knock-down orange peel). What I got instead was a messy version....he just shot mud on kinda randomly with no knock-down/troweling process. It doesn't look horrible, but it's enough to bother me. So I wasn't man enough to pull the plug on the operation right after he applied the texture. I let him finish the job thinking that maybe after a few coats of paint things would look better. Turns out his painting skills are about as good as his mudding skills. What's my best option for cleaning this up now? I've been reading and I think that maybe a coat of Gardz, followed by some sanding, followed by a complete skim coat and then paint might be a good option. But I'm not sure how this will work over the existing texture. Any advice from the pros would be very helpful. By the way, I luckily asked for a plaster ceiling and he sub'd that out to someone who did a good job.

I have a unique situation. I am trying to figure out something that I can put in place of drywall walls in order to close in my staircase. I have bought a home with an inlaw suite for my parents and we all use the same entry door. They then go into the apartment downstairs by another door and we walk up the stairs. I want to build a door at the top of the stairs and therefore close in a half wall that is on the one side (finishing off my living room). There is a large window that I would love to be able to still benefit from its light and I want something that would maybe keep out a little more noise than having nothing there. I could install a drywall wall although it would be hard to reach as its cathedral-like and I still want the light. I cannot find anything that I can install between the ceiling and the half wall except maybe a shoji screen which wouldnt save any noise. And as I'm sure everyone else is..I am working on a budget! Please help!!