CoolWebs wrote:
My girlfriend and I are considering painting some rooms in my house,
but we want it to look professional. Here are some of the problems we
have:

There are various different textures, repairs, patches in the walls.
In order to get the most consistent look, should I use an orbital
sander on all of the wall area or try to add texture to repaired/
sanded areas to get them to match the surrounding texture? Please give
any and all advice. Thanks.

Don't use an orbital sander.

If you do use a powered sander, use one with a vacuum attachment and that
uses the screen wire type sanding material.

I sanded down a 9x14' wall in order to mount a large mural (the mural needed
a FLAT surface). Fortunately I had a wall sander that used sheet-rock
texture sandpaper. When finished, there was enough dust in the vac to cover
several acres.

If I were contemplating taking another wall down to the base just to
retexture, I'd consider paneling.