Should've made it a bit clearer, first pic was the first coat, structo-lite and sand with a little gypsum plaster added to make it cure within a reasonable time. Second pic is the second coat, Imperial basecoat, third pic (third coat) is more Imperial worked smooth on the sill, and Diamond finish veneer on the sides of the windows. The two pics in this one are the two sides of the window before plastering to give you an idea of what's behind. This stuff gets pretty thick in spots, maybe 1 1/2" at the thickest - where there's extra fill to smooth out the straw, and roughly 3/4" or a little less at the thinnest points.
Greg's right about the light, we've got it painted now too, and it's a bright little room, in spite of that window facing north with a 2 1/2' roof projection. We've been doing very little mudding and sanding ( I hate sanding, who doesn't). There's a room or two where we were always going to paint, rather than tinting the finish plaster, and those we finished conventionally. After some experimenting, we dropped the tinted plaster idea but decided to plaster all the walls, since its faster than mud and sanding. Not exactly following USG's recommended scheme, but if it all falls off in 10 years I'll just redo being older and wiser, if probably somewhat weaker.