Keep your chin up!

I am repeating this to myself over and over again. The drywaller really really really messed up the entire house. The first problem is that we hired this guy not because he had the lowest bid, which he didn't, but because he could start the soonest. Impatient little Michelle. He hired another guy who actually hired another guy. So I guess this is actually sub-contracting woes. Anyway, we asked for smooth walls. Everyone told me they would be more expensive and take longer. No problem, it's what I really want. Now the guy doing the work said he'd actually charge more for the textured walls because they take more product. Hmmmm... Carrie, if you're reading this to Marty, you better stop here. It gets worse. So we could still see the roughed up paper between the lines of mud, but the middle contractor said to put the primer down and that would lay it down. Ok, on went the primer. No go. So he came over to give it a look and I knocked it down a little with a sanding block and he says, "Oh, yeah, that'll work. Sand it all and put the gloss on." That took a little time and Michael had to re-prime the sprayer several times in the process. So I was trying to stay ahead sanding while he sprayed on the gloss, and then as the sun went down, we could still see the lines of mud and checkerboard pattern between stripes of mud, and now we could see bubbles in the mud, round prints from the sander and even a few screws. Ok, almost all of them. So we had that second contractor come out to look at it and he's still thinking that sanding and painting is going to fix it. We went home and decided to call the guy we actually hired and planned to meet the next morning. In the meantime, the second guy called and yelled at us for painting, mind you it was his idea that we paint. He also said that smooth walls were a 5 coat job and we only paid him for 3. Michael calmly (almost) reminded him that we didn't hire him at all. We hired the other guy to give us smooth walls and he should be more careful how he bids, however, not our problem.
So then, the guy we hired had some guys come down from Omaha to check it out. They walked through the whole place and just kept saying, "Wow." I didn't take that as being a good thing. They were really hinting at the options that at this point included more texture than smooth, but everytime they did, I could just feel my eyes well up. I had already asked Michael if he was aware of what my greatest fear at this point was. He asked, "That we won't get in before Christmas?" More tears. No, I'm just afraid that there's no way to get smooth walls now. So anyway, he stressed to the guys that we are aware that perfect is not possible anymore, but that texture of any kind just isn't an option for me. Michael had to leave for work at that point, and these guys apparently know how to treat women, because the subject never came up again. They did want to show me a knock-down technique, because it's all the rage in the $2M houses, but it just didn't get me. I'll take it if I have to, but I've had smooth, glossy ceilings once and I really loved them. Just keep praying!