Finishing a new wall or room with plaster or joint compound takes practice. If you have no experience with plaster or its near relative, joint compound, don’t learn in your living room. Experiment ...

A crack in a plaster wall can look intimidating, and even be a cause for concern. While the sudden appearance of a crack in a previously pristine wall should always be approached with caution, they ...

Q:We are getting ready to repaint our home office. The walls and ceiling were cracked during the 1989 quake and poorly patched before we moved in. We had the roof redone this summer, and the banging ...

Dear James: I have an old house with plaster walls and many cracks that need to be repaired. How can I fix these so they stay fixed and are invisible? — Julianne T. Dear Julianne: Many older houses ...

Q:My husband and I just bought a house that has a "skip-trough" finish on the interior walls. We would like to make the walls smooth and then repaint them. One friend advised us to apply joint ...

Question: My wife and I removed beadboard wainscoting in a house we just bought. In the process we destroyed the wall. The beadboard was glued on, and when it came down, so did a thin coat of ...

Lath and plaster walls grace many traditional homes. Thick, substantial, and great at soundproofing, walls constructed out of lath and plaster are rarely built anew anymore. They tend only to be ...