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.

We took a more conservative approach when renovating our 1928 Tudor, course our plaster was in fairly good condition. The house needed new wiring, plumbing, and we needed to remodel the kitchen and bathrooms as well. We decided to create arteries to get these new systems up to other floors. Think of potential opportunities for these arteries when you embark on a remodel. Example, when we gutted the kitchen, we used this artery to get the wiring up to the second floor. We gutted one wall in the bathroom to run our new copper plumbing up and some wiring. We did gut our basement entirely of 70's paneling and use that to help us channel the new systems up. So, with a good bit of planning and thinking, you can save the headache of removing the plaster. I for one believe the plaster and some of the cracks and repairs give the house it's age and character. I've seen houses that have been completely gutted and drywalled, they look a bit sterile to me. It freaks me out when I see people on tv and whatnot, bashing away at plaster without a respirator or something, you know they're sucking in tons of lead paint and possibly asbestos. Think people! Negatives of removing plaster: 1. The weight of all that plaster and lathe 2. The lead and asbestos dust, yuck! 3. The nails holding the lathe on take forever to remove, and they're rusty. 4. Removing the character of the old walls. That said, if the plaster is trashed, beyond repair, have a company come in and take it all down. If you want to insulate the exterior walls, you can have a company drill holes on the outside and force blow-in insulation in the cavities. Myself, I think it's better to have the house breathe a bit. I really think some of these new homes are over insulated. We insulated our attics to R38 and insulated the remodeled rooms we have done. So far the house is staying cooler with the AC and Warmer with the heating and our bills have gone down. We put new Marvin Infinity Fiberglass windows in and they've helped a ton. Hope these ideas help!

Progress: And 1 inch of what may have been the original 1887 wallpaper. I like the green: I ended up using the circular saw to make grid cuts 12-18" apart. I used the multi tool to make cuts closer to the wall and corners where the circular saw couldn't clear. I tried different methods to pry the sections off; some were too narrow; some had too much flex. A 5" wide blade, hammered in and then pried down, did most of the work. Where the ceiling met the wall, I did a combination of breaking the paint and skim coat with a putty knife hammered upwards, and just cutting around with a multitool. There was only about a 1/8" thick bond to break through so it came away, thankfully, easily. I'd say it was altogether 10 hours in a 6 x 8 room to get this far--crazy! I definitely won't be doing the rest of the house. In most other rooms I plan to knock off the flecky balls and skim coat the ridged scallops, like Worthy suggests. In the double parlor, which has crown molding, I'll go through this routine. It's a great upper body workout! Some of the original ceiling is loose, so I'll be putting in some plaster washer anchors. You can also see where they poked holes to verify the location of studs. Those and the cracks will get fiberglass tape and patched. A little skimming, a little sanding, a little paint, and she'll be done. Of course, before all that, I'll do a thorough scrub down with tsp and water, then rinse, dry, and coat with benjamin moore calcimine recoater. Then plaster bonding agent to all the damaged places, and then fiberglass tape, patch/fill with durabond, knock down with a putty knife, then easy sand, then sanding, priming, and finally paint. What could be easier?!? Hope everybody else is having as much fun as I am this weekend! And yes, I'm saving a sample of the wallpaper for the house book.

It sounds like you have what you need, and that you just need some practice. Any corded drill (or cordless) can handle this job. It sounds like you have standard, inexpensive bits which are usually high speed steel (HSS), and those are fine, too. You may want to get some better quality bits (like titanium coated) in the future. Unless your walls are actually concrete, you have no need of specialty tools, like a hammer drill or masonry bits. Impact drivers are wonderful specialty tools for driving fasteners into tough materials, but it would be the wrong tool to use on this project. (It would be nice to have a cordless drill-driver if you are driving screws, but you don't absolutely need that, and you need to master the use of a regular drill first.) Plaster drilling dulls bits faster than using them in wood, so you might want to have some extra bits on hand. And even though I have been using tools for over 50 years, I, too, occasionally break small diameter bits, so I keep cheap spares around. While I tend to buy high quality power tools, when it comes to disposables, like bits, I look for bargains since I do a lot of drilling; for your drilling needs, you might want to look at a place like Harbor Freight tools: Drill bits You can get decent bits there for cheap, including things like a set of half a dozen 1/16" or 3/32" or 1/8" bits for a couple of bucks. They have stores in many areas of the country and you can buy online. Too many homeowners have one set of bits that get dull early on and never get replaced, so I suggest you pick up some extras and toss them out when they quit performing well. Good luck, and tell me what happens when you try this again. Do you think it would help your skills development if you practice drilling into a scrap of wood first, just to get the hang of handling your new tool? I also assume that you have a standard variable speed drill, and it would be better to use it at a slower speed when going in to plaster. And did you confirm that the forward-reverse switch was in the correct position? :-)