More specific answer --

Old Plaster has a tendency to show cracks. You can just paint over it, which many old house owners do or do a skim coat of new plaster, hard to work with, or joint compount, preferred over the small cracks to make it smooth again. A skim coat is just a very light layer of compound that you smooth over teh existing layer and then sand with a high grit sandpaper to get a smooth surface.

My prefered method when I have time is to do light weight joint compound where teh crack is,you are really just putting a very thin coat on with the knife, let it dry and then sand with an orbital sander attached to a shop vac. Looks great and no mess. As i rarely have time, I more often just paint over the cracks and don't bnotice them except when I am being picky.

Is the areas that is stinky over the crawlspace, if so thats another advantage to completely sealing the crawlspace floor -- non-stinkiness. The keeping of moist vapor out should also help the smell. Caulk or expanding foam should also help, but I would think that stopping the source of the problem would be much more effective and they might not do much by themselves.

Thanks for the advice. I think in the bedroom where we sleep I might take the time to repair some of the cracks in the ceiling, they do drive me a little crazy! But maybe I will be less picky when I find out how much work it takes.

The stinky cupboard isn't really over the crawlspace, it's over the basement, but come to think about it, it's over the concrete sink that was poured as part of the basement and gets very smelly because it's cracked and doesn't dry out very well and is where we drain the washing machine. Figuring out what to do about this is on the list too (sigh)! Inspector said use a sledge hammer, brother who works in home construction said repair the crack with stuff used to repair cracks in the foundation. During the summer we just used fans and open windows in the basement to help it dry out.

thanks again
trillium