By request - things I learned.
Wet sanding - drywall tape and bed, texture, repair without the dust.
ETA: I paid the bills often with this skill.
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I will be buying a drywall sponge.
After years of me asking, my son finally is building a Moroccan arch in the doorway between my bedroom and the closet/bathroom area of my bedroom. To call it a "suite" seems sorta pretentious. 
And yes, I am now old enough to be eccentric. Or eclectic. One of those.
Anyway, the doorway opening is 45.5 inches wide, and he screwed a sturdy wood framework to the walls and ceiling, hand-drew a beautiful Moroccan arch shape on two pieces of (purple!) drywall, and fastened the drywall to the wood frame. He then cut and screwed in a LOT of little wooden blocks to fill in the 4.5 inch space between and inside the two sides of the drywall arch, and I am mudding that as carefully as possible so I can either cover it with tiny mosaic tile, or gold leaf it. Lots of sanding dust. Maybe 2 3/4 square feet of area is involved.
Bottom of the arch comes down 48 inches, the opening at the top aof the arch comes down 14 inches from the ceiling.
I would have a paid a lot for that arch, when I was working in IT and making good money - and we already had all of the materials in the garage.
We are now having a conversation about the finish - I want to keep the plain white drywall compound finish, as it looks just like Moroccan plaster work, but he wants to paint it to match the blue-green bedroom walls. I will win, but I need to hide the paint.
I am certainly going to do the wet sanding thing, thank you!
