Just finished up about 6 sheets of dry wall enclosing a freestanding steel and aluminum stair case. Prior excursions into the dry wall arena have made me less than popular with she who cleans so I bought a "Magna MT800 Sand & Kleen Hand Sander System" for the grand sum of $49.99 from Amazon. It's not an everyday tool (somewhat flimsy) but worked well enough for what I had to do. Today I cleaned out the bucket and found at least 5 lb. of dry wall mud which I had sanded off which didn't become dust. ...Highly recommended.
Another discovery. I was dissatisfied with the coverage I was getting as I primed the drywall with Benjamin Moore's latex primer (Moorcraft.)
The Benjamin Moore rep came by and after looking at it told me that they now recommend using an oil based primer on new drywall. Then I can put on a finish latex coat. Reason given is that the dry wall here comes from Canada. They use a lot of recycled newsprint, and for hug-a-tree reasons don't bleach it. The ink bleeds through the latex primer. ...And it sure does.
I'm ready to go back to lead paint, all I need to do is find some. ;-)
RB