Plaster

When our fine city was founded in 1718, plaster had already been well established as the predominant interior wall covering for most structures. Only occasionally were walls covered instead in wood paneling.  Until the 1940's when drywall/sheet-rock became a viable alternative, plaster reigned as high king.Thus, when one buys a house in the City of New Orleans, or in a couple of areas in nearby suburbs, chances are that the house will have at least some plaster walls in it. 

Plaster and drywall, have much in common, but they also have many more differences. In some ways plaster is better, in other ways drywall is far superior. I've hear from violinists that the instrument sounds far superior when played in a room with the ticker, denser, heavier plaster walls; to them the walls might was well be covered in carpet as be made of the porous, thin, soft sheet-rock. Plaster is much harder, and thus it is a substantial task to to inflict damage to it. Nevertheless, driving a nail or a screw into plaster to hang or attach something can be difficult if it is at all possible. Plaster is also much more difficult to install or repair than drywall.

As most of you know, I am closing in on one year of ownership of a 100 year old house. When we bought the house, the walls were almost 100% plaster. The parts that weren't plaster were a few small drywall patches, or simply missing plaster. The three largest rooms, had particularly bad plaster. It had larger cavernous cracks, it was crumbling, and in many places it was not falling from the lathe only because many layers of paint and painted wallpaper were keeping it [sort of] in place. It would have been more expensive to repair it, than to remove it and re-plaster it. Either option was well beyond our budget, so we removed it and replaced it with drywall.

Our stairwell, foyer, and hallway on the other hand, had few cracks, and the ones that did exist had not caused the plaster to shift. The problem that did exist in this area was that the wall paper adhesive was causing the finish-coat of the plaster to come off with the wall paper. Because the bottom coats of plaster are in good condition, and because I ended up with an excess of joint compound from the installation of drywall in the other rooms, I decided to engage on the journey of fixing the plaster myself. I will simply be skimming the better part of each wall with the joint compound filling in hole and uneven surfaces along the way.

Alas, It won't have all of the benefits of plaster, and it will actually be missing a few of the benefits of drywall also. Nevertheless, this is an inexpensive, non-destructive solution.

Most people in the U.S. today, know very little, if any thing at all about plaster, but in New Orleans, a healthy understanding of plaster is almost requisite knowledge for a homeowner. It is also important, for a New Orleanian homeowner, to appreciate it, and the time, effort, and care that was once a part of the homebuilding trade, as evidenced by large flat walls of plaster.