Yeah I agree with that sentiment- why make mountain out of mole hill - unless the plaster is falling down in many multiple places. 1" of plaster is great - very soundproof and solid - simple crack repair is something a handyperson could be good at - look for someone who has experience with and affection for old houses. Or homeowner can easily learn. Not sure about that "old world" texture though - how to replicate the texture in your repair? Perhaps youd skim coat everything to smooth it after crack repair? I dunno, post pics if you want more input.

And yes, 1948 qualifies as "old" house -

It's not easy to find plaster folks in this area (SF bay area). They exist but they're not common. My GC has worked with a couple of plaster guys ... well he did: one isn't doing it anymore, at least not interior.

It's not clear how problematic patching is going to be. For example, there's one wall where a window is being removed. I'm not clear on whether getting new plaster to level with the existing plaster is going to be an issue?

I'm wondering what kind of lath would be necessary.

Or if it's possible to shim blueboard to a close enough depth that a veneer coat could be smooth.

Or if we just go to the studs on those walls and use blueboard/veneer.

Guess I'll try to do more digging for plaster specialists.

And, yeah, I do plan on running a smooth coat over everything.

1948 is kinda of old. The finishes aren't as nice as they were before the war. My dream house is something built between 1900 and 1930. Gotta go buy some lottery tickets.

If you're in the SF area (lots of historic houses) I would think there'd be lots of tradespeople (lowly handyperson on up to fine craftsman). with plaster repair in their repertoire - its not rocket science. However if you're locked in to using your GC and only people he wants to work with that may limit things. He may be a great GC (Im sure he is) but they all have their area of expertise and comfort zone and way of doing things and not want to venture outside of it. For example some will only push drywall -so its great that hes at least willing to entertain various different options to get you what you want.

No, getting new plaster level with existing is not an issue - cutting drywall pieces (rock lath) and attaching at the studs and new window framing may all thats needed - if gaps are not large you can just attach metal mesh to back of the rock lath and plaster over the hole - I dunno, hard to say w/o seeing pics or knowing how large of gaps we are talking about. Good luck!

> I would think there'd be lots of tradespeople

You would think so. It's not rocket science but it is different materials. And even with all the historic stuff, probably not a huge demand. Most people are clueless so when the GC says sheetrock, they just buy in. And the people that are clueful don't need much repair/changes. Not to mention that people don't realize plaster cracks and blame the plasterer for it. Etc., etc.

My GC's not the problem. He's open. Plaster, wood windows, corks floors. That's a bit part of why I chose to work with him. But we have to find the people. We're both working our networks. They may be out there but it's a bit of a needle in a haystack.

Thanks for the comments. I'll update when I know more. This is pretty active right now. Read: exciting/scary. :-)

"Clueful" probably also tend to DIY - its one of the few things average homeowner can learn to do reasonably well - unlike say plumbing or fine woodworking. You might ask at thehistoricdistrict.org if you havent already done so -good luck!

Thanks. I'll check it out.

So we've started demoing the plaster where openings (doors, windows, passage ways) are changing (which is, among other things, every window.)

The plaster is pretty much the classic application for the time (late 40s): 1/4" button board/rock lath (with occasional use of wire lath), then around 1/2" of brown plaster plus a thin layer of finish white plaster.

I'm not sure how we're going to do this. (Supposed to be getting a plaster specialist to come look.) There are places that big gaps have to be reapplied, next to possibly preserved original plaster.

I don't know if anyone (even the specialist) will do traditional 1/2" plaster ... or if it's worth it. I kind of doubt that.

So wondering about 1/2" blueboard (or even 5/8") plus a couple of coats of veneer plaster, possibly applied more heavily than normal, to equal the 6/8-7/8 original plaster + rock lath.

Or we could just give up on those walls and put up all blueboard + veneer. That wold be smooth, if thinner plaster.

Interested to hear what the plaster guys say.

One thing I will say, both the GC and the sheetrock guy were touching my walls saying, "yeah, I can see why you like these."

Three of the last four plasterers I've had in to do work were here on a temporary basis from Ireland. They all did superb work. Perhaps you could find someone in the Dublin version of Craigslist who'd like to come over and work on your house for a couple weeks. The craft seems to be alive and well there. (I had the opposite problem here in Boston-- I needed a cheap drywall covering for spray foam insulation in my barn loft and it was really hard to get someone willing to do drywall rather than blueboard/plaster.)

We've had to patch areas of plaster (same stuff as you have with probably the same textures) and while it's certainly less wavy than the old, it looks okay and blends in fine. We did a few entire walls when replacing windows and I have to say, it's totally worth it to have actual insulation in those walls!

Nobody seems to know where the plaster guys are in the bay area, but there are a lot of good drywall guys that can match textures.

Ive had similar problems with the original plaster in my house, but it seems a little more straight forward because it's with wood lath. It's been so easy to go to a rebuilding center and get old pieces of lath to replace the old or add where it wasn't.

Can you add some wood lath in, attaching it up the studs, where you need it?

I honestly know nothing about this, I just jumped in. I gathered plastering info and started doing it, it is going well. And to me it seems waaaaay easier than replacing with drywall, and way cheaper.

its a lost art, but I don't know why. It's not hard and it's such a good product. Maybe it will one around.

I actually think wood lath is harder to deal with than rock lath. Rock lath is fairly straightforward (as I understand it), it just comes in smaller sheets than sheetrock/blueboard. That's what the internet has to say about why people liked sheetrock better: it was faster to put up ... at least originally.

I wonder how much that's still true. I'm sure it takes longer to put up more pieces, but it's unclear whether that's a significant amount of time in the overall job.

The bigger question remains, for me, to figure out how to match my existing walls, like this:

The plaster's been taken off in some areas because we have to reframe for new windows (both placement and size).

The question is, can we put something up in those areas that matches that existing plaster so there's no visible transition.

I haven't found anyone (yet) that does "standard" (lime?) plaster, the ~3/4" stuff I have.

But I don't know how much flexibility there is in depth of veneer plaster, both in terms of how thick a layer blueboard can support nor whether veneer plaster will cure correctly if it's thicker than normal.

The intention is to put a finish coat everywhere, even the old plaster, but that can only smooth out so much difference in the substrate.

rwiegand, I've thought about that. Doesn't seem too feasible but I have thought about it.

I think about it when I read lots of stuff on GW where I think, "if only that person were in the area ..."

For what it's worth:

Rock lath/button board from the back:

A cut away showing the rock lath, brown coat, and finish coat:

Fori & others: is the "feel" of "original" plaster, i.e., 1/2" +, significantly different than that of contemporary veneer plaster (blueboard + skim coat.) I've not found any references where I can see/touch veneer plaster.

If it's not very different, it seems like the most straightfoward thing to do is to convert to veneer plaster.

If it is different, I have to decide if I want to try to combine the two or whether it'd be better to have all one or the other.

Finding someone that will do original plaster with the long cure etc. seems unlikely. Hard enough find people that do veneer plaster.

Most of the people around here that do plaster only do stucco.

Well, we have our plaster guy. Originally from Ireland.

The price is a bit less than twice the cost of sheetrock for "real" plaster: metal lath, a scratch coat, a brown coat, and two smooth finish coats.

A bit more than I was hoping to pay, but I didn't think I was going to get anything beyond veneer plaster. I just can't pass up the chance for "real" plaster.

Oh, good. I'm so glad you found a way, aptosca.

I ran into the plasterer yesterday by accident. He's not supposed to start working on my project for another 6-8 weeks but he was in the area so he wanted to drop off some metal lath he'll use on the job.

I'd been thinking about doing something at the wall-ceiling joint, where people put crown molding. I don't have high ceilings so I've been shying away from doing real crown: I think it would make the ceiling feel lower.

But I thought about doing a very small cove in plaster and I wanted to ask him about it.

His suggestion, based on period houses in SF, was do a rectangular molding that's about 1" think that runs 3" down the wall and 10" across the ceiling. Sounds amazing to me. It'll only be in the living room and dining room.

I gotta say, I'm terribly excited about this whole process. It could all come crashing down but at this point, I'm totally into this.

I'll never be able to sell this house before I die: there's too high a chance whoever bought it would tear it down and build something new. That would break my heart.

That sounds promising, I'm glad you found your guy. The molding sounds pretty neat, too!

Im ignorant; why won't you be able to sell? Because of the crazy state of housing affairs in SF?

"Never able" in the "never willing" sense: after putting all this into the house, I'd hate to see somebody come in and then just push the whole thing down and build a McMansion. And that's not unlikely in this area. The land value is far greater than the structure value. My house is only 1K sf so in this area many people would want to tear it down and build something at 3K+.

If you have the time, I would love an update on your plaster walls.

Coincidental timing, dsgts. Plaster started this morning.

Today they put up paper and are starting to hang the wire lath. All the lath is supposed to be up and inspected by Friday. (My city is entirely confused on how to inspect interior plaster lath; evidently, it's not come up in a long, long time.)

After lath, we get scratch coat, brown coat, and finish coats. They expect it to take about 10 days for 1000sf house but only patching the ceiling which didn't have many changes.

All brand new walls, or just what's been opened up?

We kept some of the walls. Not sure how many. Maybe 30%? Window and opening framing changes pulled a lot off. But we did save all the ceilings.

In some places, the plasterer will have to match the existing plaster which varies from 3/4" to 1". Places where there's no plaster, he'll put in 3/4".

Cool.

Maybe consider a pigmented final finish to avoid having to paint.

I did talk to the plasterer about that but we decided that paint was the best approach for my house given some paint/style constraints.

I'll see if I can get some in-progress pictures ...

Update please.

This weekend.

Plaster is supposed to finish tomorrow. Might take until Friday. Hopefully done by then because other trades are supposed to start on Monday.

I'll post some of the in-progress pictures this weekend.

I have to admit, I absolutely love it. My girlfriend says it's a little disturbing how I like to run my hands over the walls. The plaster crown in the living and dining rooms looks amazing and was really successful in taking a very plain and awkward room shape and give it definition.

Not cheap, but no regrets at all.

This has been an exciting project to follow. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.

I need to restore some of the lath and plaster walls in my house. Can you tell me how you found expert plasterers to do the work? Thanks!

"Can you tell me how you found expert plasterers to do the work"

Ditto.

Still busy with the remodeling so I didn't get a chance to upload pictures last weekend. Maybe next?

Anyway, finding someone to do the plaster was tough. There aren't many in my area (SF bay area) though more than in other areas: SF has a lot of existing plaster and though people are mostly replacing it, there's enough work to keep folks busy.

I don't actually remember where I found someone to do the work. Some mix of Yelp, Nextdoor, Angie's List, and general web searches.

I found several people that will do minor repairs but mostly do stucco, no interior. I only found two that actually do interior and one never got back to me.

The guy I found is old school: Irish accent and all. He started in London and did a bunch of work in NY before moving to the bay area. He runs a single crew of 3-5 guys and does a lot of the work himself.

Thank you. I am in the East Bay and would love to have his contact information.

http://www.mkirwanplastering.com/

Thank you! I will call today.

Sounds like you made a good decision. I had "real" plaster in several places I lived, and recently in my current home it was replaced with veneer plaster (I trusted a bad GC). It does not provide the same level of sound and temperature insulation, and the walls do not feel as solid.

I wondered about that, about veneer. Are there good things to veneer over sheetrock, then?