Thanks! I thought about trying to shave the cabinet, but it only has thin plywood sides to start with so was worried about doing damage there. The block is basically just a piece of wood (probably the piece of stud that was cut out) nailed to a horizontal 2x4 that is in turn nailed to the remaining studs. It formed the left edge of the original cabinet. We could also take it out and just move it, but the lathe is nailed to it so that seemed to have the potential to do a lot more plaster damage. (We have a clear inch on both the block and the stud that could be shaved with no impact to lathe, probably because of the way the original cabinet was set in place.) The plywood stabilizer is a great idea, though--thanks!

I've removed many slat and plaster walls and this is the most efficient\minimal mess technique I have discovered. The fact is, this is a messy job and "bashing walls" is out of the question if you want to minimize the spread of dust and cleanup time. Here's what you need and how to do it: 1. Quality respirator mask (no exceptions). I recommend a $19 dual filter mask from Wal Mart. 2. Thick durable work gloves. 3. Protective plastic goggles (Wal Mart). 4. 1 Large black marker. 5. 10 X 12 thin plastic drop sheets (Wal Mart). 6. 1 flat pry-bar. 7. 1 Drill with half 1/2 inch bit. 8. Reciprocating Saw (any reliable brand will do) with extension chord. 9. 1 stud finder. 10. 1 ladder. 11. Large 96 gallon square trash bin with wheels or durable plastic storage container with wheels (preferably). 12. 1 Shop vacuum. 13. 1 Broom & dustpan 14. A partner to help (needs items 1, 2, & 3). Step 1) Turn off the power in the room that contains the wall you plan on stripping. You do not want to electrocute yourself! If other rooms have power receptacles on a separate fuse you can run an extension chord into the work room to power a flood lamp. Or if it's daylight you're all set ;) Step 2) Remove all wood trim from wall. Using the ladder, stud finder, and the black marker, start about 5" down from the wall\ceiling crease and locate and mark all the wall studs on the wall you plan to strip plaster slats from. Make your stud marks horizontal and 4" wide. Have your partner mark where the stud finder began beeping and where it stopped. Make note of all electrical switches and outlets. If you have multiple plugin outlets on a single wall chances are the wiring will be horizontally ran inside the wall to join the outlets. Use the marker to draw a horizontal line between outlets. You will not cut below or within 5" of the top of this line. Step 3) Cover the floor of the room where you're working with the 10 X 12 plastic. I like to "booth off" the room with plastic by taping 10 X 12 sheets from the ceiling to the floor using blue painters tape as it will not rip your drywall paint\paper when you remove the tape. I tape all joining plastic sheet seems from ceiling to floor and allow a slit for me to walk out during breaks. Step 4) Put on you respirator, goggles and gloves. Make sure your respirator is tight enough not to let air in and the nose bridge is snug on the bridge of your nose. You do not want ancient dust creeping in your mask! A hat is optional if you don't want dust in your hair (ladies). Position the 96 gallon trash can by the ladder and have your partner waiting for you to hand them square slat and plaster section to put into the garbage can. Step 5) Start at the left hand side of the wall. At the top of the ceiling, using the drill and the 1/2" bit, drill a hole on the right end of the 4" stud marking. Only drill a hole in the section your are currently working on. Step 6) Place the blade of the reciprocating saw half way in the 1/2" hole you drilled earlier and begin sawing downward. gently add downward pressure to the saw, don't force the saw, let the saw do the work. It should cut through like butter. Keep your cut line as straight up-and-down as possible. You can also steer the saw close to the parallel wall stud for a closer cut. If the saw blade pops out or is hard to move, chances are you're cutting into a wall stud. Stop, evaluate the situation (using a flashlight), and reposition and continue to cut just the slats and plaster. Stop cutting when you're about 2" from the floor. You should now have a semi-straight vertical cut line from ceiling to floor. Step 7) On the ladder, using the pry bar, at the top of the wall, you will pry off your first single square section of wall by using the following technique. At the top of the wall, from left to right, diagonally slide the pry bar (hook end towards you) behind the cut plaster panel and leave the very end of the pry bar(flat end) sticking out at the lower bottom left. With your right hand, firmly grad the upper right of the plaster section, holding the hook end of the pry bar against the back of the plaster wall section. With your left hand, firmly hold the flat end of the pry bar behind the lower left corner of the plaster wall section. Slowly pull the entire panel of plaster towards you keeping the pry bar firmly pressed behind the plaster section you are removing. If you do it correctly you will keep 98% of the plaster in tact and all nails joining the wood slats to the 2 X 4 beam will be pulled out at the same time. Hand the square plaster section to your partner to place in the bottom of the 96 gal plastic trash can. Continue this technique all the way down the cut in the section you are working. You should get the hang of it by the time you're done with the removal of your first section. Step 8) Repeat steps 5 through 7 until the wall is stripped. You may have some remaining nails to remove with the pry bar when you are completely finished with the entire wall. Step 10) Pick up stray pieces of plaster and slats when you're finished. Gently roll up the plastics sheets being careful not to spread the dust; dispose of the plastic. Sweep and vacuum and remaining dust and debre that escaped the plastic. You may need to make several trips to the waste transfer station with the trash can to dispose of the slat and plaster or you can pay someone to pick it up. I have this technique down to where I can strip a 10 x 8 wall in 60 min with little or no mess on the floor. Have fun, be safe.

The simplest way is to knock on the wall until it doesn't sound hollow. This might only get you to within a few inches of the stud. An electrical receptacle might give you the location of one stud to sue as a reference point. To use a detector you must determine if the lath is wood or metal. Your contractor should know or you can tell by removing an electrical box cover plate. If it is metal lath you might be able to use the trial and error method but if the material is sound you can use moly bolts that are inserted in a drilled hole and expand when you tighten them. If it is wood lath a stud finder will sometimes work but it may be fooled by the inconsistent density of the plaster and the additional density of the wood lath but its worth a try. Be aware that there might be horizontal or diagonal bracing in the wall. It may be possible to search for the nails that attach the wood lath to the studs either with a detector that has a metal mode or one that is designed to detect only metal. Zircon is a good brand. Another way to find the nails is with a small magnet. There are small magnetic stud finders with a pivoting magnet that dips when over a nail. You can also hang a small magnet from a string. Its odd that your contractor wouldn't be willing to do this for you.

I know you're worried about how the top coat/finish will look but you should consider what's underneath that, first. Plaster is rarely one coat, almost always two, or even better, three. Each applied separately and left to dry before the next is applied. The different coats are made of slightly different materials as they have different purposes, too. But the first thing to think about is the lath. I assume you are talking about wood lath? You said you have bonding stuff, but that's not going to be sufficient to stick the plaster to the lath. It's really intended to stick plaster to plaster, at the edges of the repair, which except in really small repairs isn't enough to secure the plaster to the wall. Plaster works largely because it is mechanically held to the wall when some of the first (deepest-in) coat is squeezed through the openings in the lath and blobs of it form behind it within the wall cavity. When you tore the old plaaster out, you no doubt saw the plaster material behind the lath, that wasan't sloppy work, it was an essential part of the plaster. Through a chemical curing process as the plaster dries the material on the room side of the lath and the blobs behind are permanently bonded together around and through the lath. Subsequent layers of the plaster are bonded to the deepest layer (and to each other when there are multiple coats) by a reactivation of the chemical reaction as they are applied and then dry. But the strength of the wall is based completely on the integrity of the first coat's attachment to what's behind it. The blobs are called "keys" and in a mechanical way they "lock" the first coat plaster tight to the lath. The strength of this layer comes because a chemical reaction occurs when the plaster dries (cures) slowly enough to become rock-hard and tightly stuck to the rough surface of the lath. Originally the wood lath (like all new wood) had enough intrinsic moisture content that it did not suck the moisture out of the drying plaster prematurely which would interfere with the vital curing process,thereby weakening the plaster. However when you are dealing with old lath (that was original to the wall), which is now almost tinder dry, you can have a problem. One solution is to try and re-wet the lath by spraying it to the run-off point repeatedly over several days just before starting the repair. You can also strengthen the repaired-section's adhesion to the lath and to the wall by attaching over the wood lath a section of expanded metal lath. Cut it to roughly fit the space and screw it to the wall studs. (Don't tighten the screws down so much that the metal lath is distorted and pulled down into the spaces between the lath strips. You want it to be a flat, secure plane lying just on top of the lath.) Do not use nails which can cause additional plaster pieces nearby to crack and come off. Very small repairs (6-8" holes) can get by with just attaching (withwires, or careful stapling) the expanded metal lath to the wooden lath itself, but anything larger needs the metal lath attached to studs. Your first coat of plaster is a rough coat and its pupose is to get good adhesion of the plaster to the wall so it gets troweled onto (and through) the lath pretty firmly. It should remain completely below the surface of the finished wall and there's no need to make it more than nominally flat. It is usually a much coarser mix and slitght roughness on its surface helps subsequent layers stick to it. Only scrape off big lumps which would interfere when the next layers are smoothed on. The first layer is allowed to dry and another one or two coats are added on top to fill the remaining space and bring the repair up to the same plane as the wall. Each will be slightly different in composition; the final one being more fine, and/or in your case more textured. As recommended above I would definitely try as many trials of your finished texturing as necessary before doing your wall. You needn't used multiple coats while you are practising the top coat texturing. Just try the finish samples on scraps of sheet rock over and over until you've got the technique for the final coat down to a satisfactory match. Top coat plaster sets up quite quickly and you want to be able to apply it, work the texture and be done before that happens. Before starting this job I recommend doing some more research on working with plaster. There are instructions in books on old house repair and from time to time in magazines that deal with old houses. You should also know that depending on the age of your house modern plaster available for repairs and orginal plaster are not the same thing. However for a small repair I think I would use modern materials rather than trying to source and work with older formulas. HTH L.