Thought it might be helpful to add a photo. The bright spot in the middle is a boob light sans cover. Sorry for the glare.

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If maintaining the original surface were critical, I'd say try Big Wally's on an area and see how it works. You can always add drywall.

what I don't understand is how you get rid of the waves. do you have to apply pressure? Screws?

"What say you, old house experts? Is it most expedient to drywall over the ceiling plaster or can it be repaired with Big Wally's superglue?"

Oh, it's probably much more expedient to drywall, but then you'll have a perfect modern drywall ceiling in a historic home instead of the wonderful undulations of original fabric. Invest the time and do it right. The Wally's looks like a great idea.

My wife would say it looks fine, adds character! Don't know if I agree but would certainly try and save it before drywall, for sure

Hi, we had a plaster expert (he was doing it for 60 years) do our kitchen, and in the process asked him about our LR ceiling, similar to yours. He suggested that my DH do a light skim coat, and me apply a coat of paint with a slightly fuzzy roller. We haven't done it *yet* but hopefully someday.

I have a question if I could expand on - Our current bathroom is too small of a job to hire this plaster guy back. We have all plaster walls that lived as scored plaster for about 40 years, and then covered by plastic tile for 50 years. Around the tub edge, the plaster is completely crumbled down to the lathe and we need to repair it before tiling.

Can you tell me more about this 'Big Wally's' brand of repair? Seems like we might need that patching plaster.

wonderful undulations of original fabric

LOL. Wonderful undulations like this?

Here is a link that might be useful: Big Wally's plaster magic

A good drywall ceiling and a good plaster ceiling should be indistinguishable. I don't understand what the benefit would be of keeping damaged plaster; there's nothing attractive or historic about wavy plaster. The waviness is a sign that the lath and/or plaster has dropped or separated and there is no effective repair for that. Big Wally's is for a small area not an entire ceiling. It would cost a fortune to support a ceiling while the glue dried and then you would have to patch the holes and it would never look flat. Not all dropped plaster can be pushed back up especially in a ceiling.

If a your drywall contractor can't make the drywall look perfectly flat, you need to find one who can. Where I live all wall board is skim coated "blueboard" so it's never an issue as long as the perimeter ceiling molding is not a problem. And a skim coat will not work on a painted ceiling. If the damage is severe you may have to strap the ceiling before installing the drywall in which case it is best to remove the lath and plaster. I rarely leave any plaster in a renovation project. Removing all of it makes it feasible to insulate and rewire.

There were different grades of finish with plaster then just as with drywall now. Weedy's ceiling is a two-coat plaster job, not intended for paint, but for patterned wallpapers. So it could be wavy and it would never be detected. It has developed subsequent cracking. It was a matter of use and cost then as now.
Once you get a hanging light installed and paint with ultra-flat paint, the undulations mostly disappear, so just worry about the cracks.
The wall-ceiling pic you posted is some kind of dislocation caused by movement, not from the trowel. It can be scraped level and then repaired over.
It could be argued that the level of plaster finish is an important tangible marker of the socio-economic and cultural stories told by your old house.
Casey

I had my problem plaster ceilings covered with 1/4" sheetrock with lots of long screws into the joists to hold all the plaster/lathe up there. That leveled most of it. Then they were skim coated. They were done over 20 years ago and still look good. The places that missing plaster were filled in with sheetrock first.

"wonderful undulations of original fabric"

Which are wonderful right up until the thick layers of paint that is holding the whole mess up gives way, those loose sections fall and land in the middle of your dining table.

another vote for sheet rock.
purist stuff aside, it just looks bad IMO.
knowing why it is wavy makes it an accident
waiting to happen.

and what the heck is a boob light?

LOL!

best of luck.

Boob Light:

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"what the benefit would be of keeping damaged plaster" - that statement by renovator is the crux of the discussion right there - what constitutes "damaged."

IMHO "damaged" is not it having a bit of wavyness or is easily repairable. Its when the plaster has separated from the lathe and gravity and the weight of the plaster means that someday soon it will fall on someone's head. Looks is one thing, but the photo doesnt really show us how loose it really is and how it feels if you push on it - Weedy is the best judge of that. How loose is it, when you push on the bulges can you push it back to the lath? What % of surface area do you figure has actually separated from the lath?

PS - renov8tor - re your statement above about how contractors should be able to make drywall look perfrectly flat -

Do you mean thiis be via the use of attaching the furring strips first? Or do you mean they should be able to attach it directly to the ceiling and have it be flat? If the latter then that's contingent on removing all plaster and lath, correct?,

As it happens Im thinking of having the ceilings downstairs drywalled and while I;ll hire someone to do it I want to know exactly what it is that I want! I figure I would leave the lathe in place, but not the plaster.... and then attach the furring strips at the joists???

Theres old acoustical tile in the dining room. Havent tested it for asbestos yet (it is of that era) but assuming its not I would remove it. Or is there any quick- n easy way of just covering it over with something and then skim coat over that?????

Thanks (sorry to hijack your thread OP but hopefully this is still of interest to you.)

The ceiling only had a couple loose spots. The cracking appeared to be from the house settling and causing cracks that were semi-repaired and painted over.

I read on another forum a drywall guy that tried Wally's magic stuff on the ceiling and it was a PITA because the stuff dripped out of the holes and made a big mess.

We have already rewired (from the attic), and then blew in a trailer load of insulation, so we didn't have any need to remove the plaster.

My drywall contractor, Mr. Weedy, successfully installed 1/2" drywall over top of everything. I trust he'll make it mighty smooth, but don't expect I'll trade him in for another if he doesn't. :-) I hate sanding mud, and he's not keen on the plaster repair, so I'll get to try that next week and see if I can make the walls look better.

Our plaster ceiling in the dining and living room wasn't wavy, UT at some point an electric line was run from the center fixture to three pot lights in front of the chimney brest. Then, to cover the exposed wires and empty center hole, they installed a 1 inch drop ceiling on metal tracks that took 6 by 6 tiles.

Those had to go.

We too down the tiles, then the rails then the pot lights. We were left with an almost perfect plaster ceiling - well eexcept for the hundreds of nail holes, the remains of the sad sad 'crown molding' and the giant gashes from the pot lights. So the drywall went up! We kept the plaster up but made sure to religiously find the joints to attach the drywall directly to. And this was a diy project. We had no problems.

How ironic. After posting here I took a good look at my downstairs ceilings and found some worsening cracking and loosening really too extensive to repair. Hadnet really looked closely up there in the last ten years, since doing some repairs and patches. No danger of it collapsing - just yet. But give it 3-5 years it will be coming down in chunks.

Anyhow.... what concerns me, since this is a two flat, is if I remove the plaster I will lose some of the natural soundproofness of plaster and lath. As it is now, sound does not travel much in this house. Can have the TV on LOUD upstairs and hardly hear it downstairs. Hollow drywall is notoriously poor at insulating for sound. So the problem is it starts to become a bigger chore if I have to put foam or something between the joists. ARRRGGGHHH