Drywall

[opinion free]

Drywalling is a skill. Although every handyman or DIY'er I know, claims it's easy. If the framing isn't perfect, the boards don't lay properly and the problems build from there.
Born and raised on the east coast, I never saw textured anything. Moving out west, everything is textured. I'm not a fan.
With my renovation in the planning phase, I've started shopping for drywallers. Only one contractor would talk about smooth finish walls and ceilings. It became obvious that the skill and time required to hang the wall, for the smooth (non textured) finish, was the problem.
They can hang the rock in a day and finish with texture in 2 days. The texture is a quick way to hide the sins. Without the texture, the walls can take 7 days to finish. Time = money.
All said, I'm going with smooth, non textured walls and ceilings. I prefer a matt, smooth wall finish for my trailer.
If you ever get a chance to watch professional drywallers hang the rock, watch it. It's like a ballet the way they lift, cut, spin and screw the boards to the wall. And fast. A crew of 8 did my 3000 sq. ft. stick house completely, in 1 day. It was amazing to watch. They left 1 guy in a van, in the driveway, for 10 days to tape and mud everything.

[dalepres]

I am not a mobile home expert, I've lived in one for 20 years (that was 10 years old when we bought it) but it's the only mobile home experience I have. But I always figured that one reason not to tape joints in drywall is that the mud would crack during transportation. I think it is a lot to expect to think that the joints would be completely rigid from manufacture to setup. I think that is one reason it would never make sense to mud and tape drywall on a mobile home.

As for texturing, As far as I can remember, everywhere I have ever lived before living in a mobile home, from Florida to Utah, Idaho, California, the walls were always textured. I don't think texturing is to cover up shoddy drywall (though it can), I think texturing is a nice finishing touch. Drywall came into existence as sort of a fake plaster. Plaster has texture. Now drywall is much more, with structural, fire prevention, moisture prevention, etc. implications but drywall was never intended to be a finish.

We're in the middle of remodeling. We're replacing much of the paneling with 1/2 inch drywall and the rest of it we're just covering with 1/4 inch (should have used 3/8 inch) drywall. We haven't had any trouble with joints cracking and some of it's been up for over 2 years. If you have drywall with cheap molding over the joints rather than tape and mud, just tape and mud it.