I know I dont work very hard… Im here for 8 hours a day, working for 1…
Network admin, its pretty typical

I worked construction for a few years in high school and college over the summers and recently did a room from scratch block wall.. Ill tell you first hand, its not that bad.
My biggest thing I can tell you is this.

USE SCREWS….
If you insist on using nails you best be damm sure that if you miss a stud hanging the rock , to pull out the nail or screw. Have you ever seen someones wall that has little bubble like things in the rock? thats from a screw or nail working back out that was never anchored to anything.

Mudding isnt that bad either. First use the mesh tape and tape the seams, steel the corners… Then just mud down that seam in the middle there.. If you have a cut edge against a tapered edge just be careful not to mud the cut edge nearly as much as the tapered.. The tapered edge is there to hold mud to make it flush, the cut edge is already flush. but of course you do have to blend it.

Once youre done mudding, take a rough sanding block and just start working all the rough edges of the mud down to to being smooth… Dont worry about oversanding here because youre going to mud again…
When you are satisfyed its smooth.. mud again, and sand again, this time after running it with a rough block, run it with a finer block to make it smooth.

Then simply rent a texturing machine and spray it on… The beauty of these machines is they are sporatic on purpose.. You cant screw it up, unless you just point and shoot at the same spot for an hour.

Hope that helps.

thanks steve in fact I just bought a st croix last night broke my fenwick golden wing the night before