Q: The walls of our 1938 San Francisco home are lath and plaster, with a canvas-like fabric over the plaster. There are cracks in the plaster, which can be seen through the paint as raised creases in ...

Q. After reading the Sunday comics, I have been reading your home repair consulting column for years. It has always been interesting and helpful. I hope you can help me with some suggestions for ...

Q. We're buying a house that is probably close to 100 years old. It has been vacant for the past several years and needs a good amount of cleaning up and fixing up. One thing we're concerned about is ...

Q: I recently moved into a house built in 1916 in Albany. Some of the house has been remodeled, but the rooms that haven't have plaster walls. I've been told that plaster cracks often due to settling.

At the turn of the 20th century, plaster was the most popular interior wall covering in North America, and it remained so for the next several decades. But things have changed since then. Drywall, ...

Drywall started to replace plaster in the post-WWII building boom. It wasn’t stronger, longer lasting, more soundproof or a better insulator. It was quicker — by a mile. But it needed fasteners, and ...

Q: Our plumber has had to cut two holes in our dining room ceiling and remove a section of original cast-plaster crown molding to assess, access and repair the second-floor bathroom plumbing above.

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4 of this story. So you live in an older home with plaster walls and ceilings, and you need to renovate. You need to run new electric lines, or repair plumbing, or perhaps ...