Hello Everyone, I finally decided to do some painting around the house. Let's just say I am a novice in painting. Hence starting with the laundry room which is the smallest room I have. Painting seems to be the easy part. My first hurdle is changing the wall texture. Currently it a grainy, sand like finish to it. Lets just say i absolutely loathe it! After doing a little research, to make the wall smooth, I would need to do some taping on the wall using some mud. But after searching for items on the Lowe's site. I am lost a bit. Can you suggest me the right products for this. For hardware, I guess a mud pan, taping knife and sanding tool should be enough. If you can think of anything else I would need let me know.

I have a 12-inch high section of wall exposed to the studs at the top of one of our kitchen walls. (There used to be upper cabinet bulkhead in this section.) I need to drywall the exposed studs and merge it with the existing plaster corner that is below it on the rest of the wall. I've tried to draw a sketch of my plan - see pic below. The main issue is that the existing corner is not square. The existing plaster wall (gypsum lath base, plaster on top) curves in to the corner. Away from the corner the lath+plaster is ~1" thick, but at the corner it's closer to 1/2"-5/8". I'm trying to figure out the best way to get it patched together. I have leftover 1/2" drywall I've been using on other sections that used to be upper cabinet bulkhead. I've been installing it in double layers because it's a close fit with the existing ~1" thick plaster sections. Well, on this corner if I install two sheets over the whole opening then the one corner side will not remotely match with the plaster corner below. As best as I can tell with some various test fits that I've done, the best idea with the materials I have on hand is to put 1/4" plywood over the whole opening, then a second 1/4" plywood layer above the thickest section of the plaster wall. Put 1/2" drywall on top of that second 1/4" plywood layer, and then a separate piece of 1/2" drywall on top of the exposed section of the first 1/4" plywood layer. Put the new corner bead on top of that smaller piece of drywall, and then try to match the lay of the plaster with drywall mud. I'm wondering if this sounds like a feasible plan. I have next to no experience with drywall tape/mud. With this plan the thickest mud area would probably be ~1/4" where the shallower drywall piece meets the farther-out drywall piece and the plaster wall has just started to curve in to the corner. I don't know if this is an issue with any/all mud types. If not, what would be the best type to use? It's complicated. Hopefully this makes sense for the most part. Further complicating the whole job is that the existing plaster on the opposing side of the corner where it meets the ceiling (only one side of the corner is exposed to the studs) is also not square - it curves out away from the corner as it meets the ceiling. So I have to try to match that somehow with the new corner bead as well. Ultimately the ceiling is getting covered with 1/2" thick planking, and the wall section being patched will be behind the side of an upper cabinet. It doesn't need to be really fancy, in other words, but I'd still like it to look halfway decent. In this sketch below, the black lines are the stud walls, red represents the proposed 1/4" plywood, blue is the proposed 1/2" drywall, purple is the proposed new corner bead, and green is the layout of the existing plaster. The non curved side of the corner still has plaster up to the ceiling - except it's cut short of the corner - that's what the hash mark on that line represents. This means the new corner bead doesn't touch the existing plaster on that side. So I'm planning on plugging a slim section of plywood in the gap so the corner bead has something to lay on. [ATTACH]63040[/ATTACH]