How easy/difficult to get a perfectly flat skimmed wall?

[Soggy Bottom]

Since we've moved in and had various bits of plastering done by various people, it's got to the point where i'm curious enough to ask - how easy or difficult is it to skim a perfect wall, or at least very close to.

Obviously i'd ideally want a perfect flat wall with no bumps, no imperfections whatsoever, but i'm not totally unrealistic.
So how difficult is it to achieve a perfect flat wall where the spirit level would say good job son?
Aside from that, how difficult is it to achieve a finish with no ripples, no pit marks etc in?

We've had probably about 5 or 6 different people perform various plastering work at ours now, ranging from bloody awful did you have your eyes shut and put a bag of nails in the mix to actually quite good & we'd have you out again.

Just had one recently & when it was all wet it didn't look too bad but as it's dried out you can see the indents. It was a bit of a nightmare to roll as the paint roller kept missing various spots due to the wall not being flat.
As for the various marks on the wall, i don't know if the mix had grit in it or what but while not the worst it wasn't the best. If it was a face you'd think it had a fair bit of acne scarring.

We've only had 1 guy who was pretty bob on & he was the youngest out of the lot by far. Early 20s. It makes me wonder .... either we're incredibly unlucky, he was just that good or they're just not that good.

 

[Iamchamps]

Recently had a kitchen skimmed and I was very impressed the ceiling looked perfect and the walls had only a few tiny bits that were not dead straight.

Some people really care about there work and some don’t however I think perfect is impossible.

 

[Notch7]

A plastered wall probably wont be perfectly plumb and may have a few contours -blockwork isnt perfect.

However a decent plasterer should leave you with a finish that you should be able to coat easily with a roller, with no discernable dips.

Its possible a plasterer may leave the odd fault, a rough patch etc -a pro decorator would checkmover a new wall and sand or fill as required -but not much, he would not expect do much at all to a newly plastered wall -if it was carp he would on the phone to the plasterer.

 

[23vc]

Any decently skimmed wall should look perfect when painted, in the vast majority of lighting conditions, unless particularly strong light is shone across it from one direction, in which case the fact that it was applied by a human rather than manufactured will show.
But hollows you can feel when painting means it’s a seriously cr@p job.