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 ...

Before the arrival of prefabricated wallboard or "drywall" in the 1940s and '50s, plaster was the material of choice for interior walls and ceilings in American homes. Portland cement plaster was ...

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this story. When you stop and think about it, a wall (or a ceiling) is a canvas. It’s a large flat surface that we hang wallpaper on, or paint. Just because we are ...

Before you do any plaster patching, rid the rooms of any residual lead. If you try to vacuum up chips or dust, you must use a special HEPA filter-equipped vacuum cleaner. Some tool rental stores rent ...