horsehair plaster repair?

[Marianna]

Just bought a house that needs some work… The walls are horshair plaster and we are looking for the most economical, OK-cheapest, way to fix them. Some are painted, some are papered. Some seem to be in decent shape, but others are cracked and/or crumbling. Do we have to rip them out? We definitely want the wallpaper gone, and would like to be able to create the smoothest, paintable wall surface possible. We are hoping to do this ourselves. Is it a pipe dream?

[tomh]

Personally, I dont get sentimental over old plaster and lath. If the house has historical signficance, or you really want to restore plaster, this advice is not for you.

My preference is to tear out plaster and lath and hang drywall, expecially on exterior walls. Drywall is CHEAP, and fairly easy to learn to hang and finish. But the best thing is, when you take out the plaster wall, you can update the insulation and wiring, and that saves big money in energy bills, and makes the house more valuable.

If the walls are in fair condition, and plaster is well adhered to the lath, you can repair cracks using plaster for deeper repairs and drywall compound to smooth smaller imperfections. This still leaves the old knob and tube ungrounded wiring in your wall and no insulation. Those are the choices. Post back and provide more details of what you want to accomplish, and we can try to give you pointers on how to minimize disruption with either option.

[dp]

go to this link, order plaster washers, they come with instructions. make very easy excellent repairs for cracks and crumbly parts you worries about

plaster is much better than drywall and should be restored when ever possible. the plaster washers make the repair arears stable and sound

BTW, there is alot of frameing work to be done on plaster framed walls to prepare for drywall, its not just a matter of swapping the coverings

its not extreemly difficult my it aint the easyest thing in the world either

much easyer to just repair and you end up with desirable plaster and not modern cheapo drywall

what i would not give for plaster walls in my house!

dp

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/cgi-bin/frameit/FrameIt.cgi?Url=http://www.oldhouseweb.net/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=20&Text=Back+To+Your+Search&Title=The+Guide+to+Suppliers&FooterSize=40&FooterLocation=2&FooterFontFace=arial&ShowRemoveFrame=1

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