Drywall in San Marcos and San Elijo Hills

San Elijo Hills is the piece to understand. It sits on a ridge with two- and three-story plans, twenty-foot entry walls, open stairwells and great rooms with a lot of glass in them — and on that kind of wall the finish level is not a preference, it is the difference between a room that looks built and a room that shows every joint at four in the afternoon. Knockdown ceilings and orange peel walls are the builder standard through most of it, and the owners remodeling now are increasingly taking the walls smooth. Down in 92069 the older ranch homes from the 1960s and 1970s are the exception to the rule: those do have sprayed ceilings, and those do need testing before anybody touches them. Around Cal State San Marcos there is a large rental block where interiors cycle hard — doorknob holes, corner bead damage at hallway turns, and the kind of fast, clean turnover repair that has to be textured and ready for paint on a fixed date. The 78 corridor on the north side is industrial and business-park shell space, which is where the metal stud and suspended-ceiling side of the work lives.