Holly: I'm somewhat bemused to be arguing with you on how long it takes to redo a bath, because I'm usually the one saying "no way that contractor should take a month to remodel your bathroom; it should be 1 week tops!" But I just finished tiling a tub surround with subways and it took 2 full Saturdays for tiling only. Granted, that included a window and a niche, and a glass listello, but there are still plenty of cuts on ends/corners. You also neglected the paint-on waterproofing over the cement board, which needs a day to dry, though you do have the plastic moisture barrier, so that could be omitted. You also forgot the 14 trips to Home Depot for the stuff you forgot to buy or didn't get enough of. Or the new stuff you need because you encountered something unexpected. Oh, and my weekends are only 2 days long. :-) In any case, we're hijacking the poor OP's thread. Sorry about that, clueless. Our 1920 house has lathe and plaster walls but the outside walls all have boards with grooves routered into them for the plaster keys to hold to. Does it look something like this? Also, the wire mesh is used in an older method of tiling, that entails embedding the mesh in concrete, making a pretty thick and incredibly stable wall. However, it's done in lieu of plaster, not behind it, so I'm not sure why it's there in your situation. Bill V could probably tell you how/why it was constructed that way, though I haven't seen him around for a while. You might also try posting in the Old House forum for someone who might be able to explain the construction. What everyone else has said is correct, however: you need to not just put plaster and tile back here. You either need to cover it up short term with something that will protect it from further damage, like a sheet of acrylic or fiberglass surround, or else rip it out and repair it. You could also just rip the whole thing out and put in an acrylic/fiberglass surround for a few hundred bucks and some elbow grease.

Metal backed paper tape or even expanded metal mesh if you have enough wall thickness to bed it in. I would probbaly cut away a lot of the drywall surface to gain bedding depth. Durabond can be as thick as you want. I have used it to replace plaster grounds occasionally, and those are a full 3/4 inch thick. Mix it with minimal water to about peanut butter consistency and the shrinkage is very small (unlike pre-mix that shrinks like crazy as it hardens by drying). Not having to repeatedly hit screw head dimples is reason enough to use Easysand. Plaster and setting joint compound harden by chemical reaction, not water evaporation.

REmove the switch pkate or a receptacel plate to try and see the edge of the wall. One of the earliest uses of gysum board was as a backer for 2 coat plaster. The backer is tyopically 16 x 48 inches and 3.8 inch thick. A gray coat was then added and a white finish coat to bring the final thickness to 3/4 of an inch for the entire wall. The shrinkage you are seeing sounds like the edges of teh backer board where the gray coat was not supported completely. You can use Easysand to skim the depressions if you want a prefectly flat surface. It is easier with a plasterer's trowel and some practice. Very fine cracks with no gap may be covered with paint, but if anything is moving with the humidity they can open again through the paint film. There are products that claim to bridge and allow painting, but I normally apply mesh tape and use setting joint compound to feather out the patch to about 12-16 inches wide.

We are remodeling our 1930s kitchen. The plaster is cracked and crumbly in some good-sized areas (2' by 4' and 3' x 5' approx). Our trusted electrician insists that the kitchen contractors should demo the plaster and replace it with drywall in the worst areas. The kitchen contractors (whom we've never used before) do not believe this is necessary, and that patching the plaster will be sufficiently strong. They say that if we apply drywall to the old plaster, the new cabinets will not fit, and it seems to me that the extra weight of drywall on already-cracked plaster will only worsen the problem. They caution against doing a complete plaster removal due to the expense and amount of dust. (2 people in our household have asthma, so this is an issue). One wall is exterior brick with no studs beneath the plaster. Another is terra cotta block, also without studs. Metal mesh lathe is used throughout. Because there are no studs, how can they anchor the new 42" solid cherry wall cabinets with either scenario? Without studs, will the brick-plaster or brick-terra cotta systems hold up? (Our previous cabinets were 32" metal). Chat room advice is as varied as my contractors'. I don't know whom to believe!