Techniques for Troweled Drywall

Knockdown Texture

• One of the most common types of drywall textures applied with a trowel is knockdown texturing. You have several different ways to accomplish the finish result, but the easiest is to use a hopper gun (also known as a texture gun) that is specifically manufactured to spray drywall onto a surface. After you finish spraying the mud onto the wall, you smooth it down just a bit, or “knock down” the high spots for a knockdown finish.

Slapbrush Knockdown Texture

• A slapbrush knockdown texture is a variant on the regular knockdown texturing. The process is similar, except that a brush is also used during the process. After you roll the drywall onto the wall with a paint roller, you then apply a coat of mud onto the slapbrush (sold at any local drywall store or home improvement store) and basically slap the brush against the wall as the name suggests. Afterwards, you trowel the surface to knock down the high points for the finished look.

Basic Hand-Troweled Texture

• While it can be fairly difficult in terms of physical effort, a hand-troweled texture is straightforward, but the end results are unique because no two troweled surfaces are the same. This is the most basic method of applying mud texture to a wall and simply revolves around putting mud on the wall, troweling it around with your trowel, and experimenting with various angles until you have a look that you enjoy. You can use any size trowel, but the larger ones make for a faster application.

Spanish Knife Texture

• Sometimes referred to as Spanish knife texture, basic knife texture mud coats utilize a smaller trowel, similar to a putty knife. Much like the way you manually hand trowel a wall, knife textures have no discerning patterns because the mud is troweled in many different directions. By using a smaller trowel and applying multiple coats of mud on top of each other at various angles and depths, you create a custom finish for your wall.