revised plan for fixing plaster walls

Hey, I may be able to get those walls smooth after all! I was hesitant to post my vague plans and ask for help from fellow housebloggers, but I'm really glad I did. :) I am now convinced that I can try smoothing out my plaster walls by skim-coating with joint compound. I may have to knock some of the wall-texture off in places, but getting fairly smooth walls shouldn't really be that much harder than globbing on more texture, and I think the results will be more desirable.

The new plan:
--> de-grease walls, and knock heaviest texture off
--> tape cracks with fiberglass mesh
--> apply several skim-coats of joint compound. (I think I will experiment with doing at least some coats with the magic trowel method).
--> sand
--> prime
--> paint

need a quick fix for messed up plaster walls..

As I continue to sand and shellac, I'm thinking I need to try to make the dining room walls look a little better before the trim goes back up.

The problem:
The walls are old fashioned plaster, with a lot of very badly-patched settling-cracks and hideous uneven (up to 1/4 inch thick) texturing. The repaired cracks all bulge outwards, and a few have hairline cracks starting to open up again.



What I would LIKE to do..
I love the look of the original plaster in the few areas of our house where it isn't messed up. So if we still want to own this house after 5 or 6 years (when my husband is up for tenure) I would want to get the plaster walls properly repaired and restored, and I would put in some insulation >_> and shore up the foundation under the dining room while I'm at it.

Why we can't do that right now..
Unfortunately there's no way I'm up for tearing into the walls or messing with the larger structural issues at this point. The heavy texturing is going to be a serious bitch to get rid of. We don't have the funds for a big project now or any nearby friends/family to help out. I've done drywall in the past, but I have no expertise with plaster. And, most importantly, we need to put the room back together ASAP so this place can start feeling like home! :)

We need a short-term fix..
So basically I need to do something to make the walls look slightly less bad for a few years! (*cough* and my entire budget for this is a hardware store gift-card I got for X-mas *cough*). A flat surface is pretty well out of the question, so I'm trying to decide what to use to apply yet another heavy texture to the walls. I'd probably go for a stucco look (something like this), which shouldn't look too out-of-place in our house, given that the 2nd floor exterior is stucco with Tudor half-timber style trim.

Here's the plan I've come up with so far:

-> wash walls with TSP
-> fill existing cracks with painter's caulk
-> slightly roughen existing (heavily textured) paint surface (?not sure how)
-> prime (?before or after texture, depending on method used?)
-> apply sand-textured paint or a paint/drywall mud mixture, knock down with swipes of a trowel
-> paint

then I can get to:
-> sand and refinish floors
-> re-install wood trim

Can anyone here help me out with some advice on this? Does my plan sound like it would work? And if so, would it look substantially better than just throwing a fresh coat of paint over the existing lumps and bumps? Would one type of texture material be less likely than another to crack over the next 5 years? (The house is climate-controlled, but it sits on a hillside that gets saturated during heavy rains-- so some settling is going to continue).

Thanks in advance for any of your thoughts on this!

Clues found beneath layers of paint...

I finally got the paint off the beams between the dining and living rooms and found out how the house is supposed to look. O_O

To tell the story, I should mention that when I first saw the house, the open L-shape of the entranceway, living and dining rooms seemed unnaturally... open. I guessed there had originally been some walls and French doors that the POs removed, and I immediately set my heart on putting in some built-ins on either side to define the space a little better.

How wrong was I on this?? The photos tell the story, I think:

Here is the view from the dining room during the paint-stripping process. (Note helpful spouse in background) ;)


And here's what it looks like right now-- with solid oak exposed beams the size of railroad ties. :) [EDIT: Oops, they aren't solid after all, but I can't tell quite how they're constructed]


But oddly enough, I found some marks on the underside of the overhead beam...


...and two rows of holes along the base of the side posts...


And in a lucky break, we had just visited with some of our new neighbors over the holidays, so I realized that the marks I found correspond EXACTLY to what they have between their dining and living rooms!!! (We went by again yesterday to take photos):


Yep, our house used to have massive beautiful built-in cabinets, and someone went to great trouble to rip them out. *sigh*

I suppose it's nice to know that my instincts were right, even though my prediction was wrong. And now we get to decide what sort of cabinets to build!! It would be fun to try to replicate the original features, but at the moment that seems very intimidating. (I was hoping to use mostly salvaged wood, but I can't quite imagine stumbling upon huge oak timbers that are just the right size =/).

Luckily I've got plenty of time to come up with a design.
*continues to keep an eye out on ebay for sets of old, glass-paned cabinet doors*

(And here are a couple more shots-- no flash, sorry!-- of the woodwork at the neighbors' house for inspiration). *drools*

Stinky room saga

We have a room with a persistent pet-odor(?) problem. When we moved in last summer we figured the smell was probably cat urine, but the more we thought about it the house's history raised a few red flags that it might be a methamphetamine lab odor, instead. =/

The house was clean and newly painted when we bought it, and there were no obvious signs of drug activity (overpowering chemical odors or stains). But we were a bit concerned that if there were any dangerous chemical residues that had been sealed over to make the house habitable, we would be exposing them all over again by tearing into the walls and floors to renovate and try to get rid of the smell. So hopefully it ISN'T meth lab residue, but on the off chance that it IS, the consequences are serious and we wanted to be sure we knew what we were dealing with. I'll summarize what we found out here in case it is helpful to anyone else facing a similar dilemma with a fixer-upper house:

The more we looked into this issue, the more troubling it all was. Though Ohio is now one of many hotspots for meth labs, the state still has no meth-disclosure clause when houses are sold (like it does for lead paint and mold). (To date only 4 states require meth lab disclosure). The health dept. could order a meth lab house to be cleaned and the walls, floors, etc. "sealed" to the point where chemical residues in the air are at a safe level for habitation, but then the next owner could buy the house without ever knowing that! The information we found recommended calling local police records dept. to see if there is any indication of past drug activity at our address. I did this, resulting in a helpful (but embarrassing) visit from several police officers. I've also spoken to some of the neighbors, and this is as much as we know:

possible signs of a meth lab?

• persistent ammonia smell that got worse when we removed the carpeting (in one room and in an area of the basement just below that room)


• the house had been rented, and sat vacant for a long time after the last rental ended badly


• the last renters left the house in poor condition with belongings/trash abandoned (*red-flag for meth houses*)


• neighbors complained of extra people living in/visiting house during last rental

or just pet urine?

• pet hair found in ductwork


• neighbors say renters had a dog that was often left alone in the house


• a neighbor who helped haul the renter's belongings/trash away remembers no unusual amounts of lab glassware or coffee filters


• no obvious stains on walls or drains (though everything was cleaned & painted over)


• no drug-related police reports at this address

For now we are going to proceed under the assumption that the odor is from pet urine, though the police did give us the number of a local person who can test our house for hazardous chemicals (at our expense) if we have further concerns.

We plan to tear out and replace the flooring and subflooring in that room, (it is badly termite-damaged beyond salvage, anyway), and strip, sand, and refinish the baseboards. If that doesn't solve the odor problem, we will start tearing into the exterior walls in search of any stinky wet blown-in insulation (which can also cause an ammonia odor). Unfortunately, for the time being we are not in a financial position to do this work, so we just have to keep the door shut to keep the rest of the house from stinking. =/

It's a pity because it really is a beautiful, sunny room! Though in addition to having an offensive odor it is a complete mess right now. The damaged/patched floors are all exposed and it is designated as my spouse's "special room to ruin." (As in "Homer!! I made a special cake for you to ruin!")

[ETA: thanks so much for all the helpful comments. An update on our stinky room can be found here]