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 ...

A: It depends on the type and size of the crack. Hairline cracks take only a little patching plaster. Larger cracks require reinforcement with mesh tape. Cracks larger still, where the plaster keys ...

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: I recently bought a small apartment house that needs a lot of work. The plaster walls and ceilings have numerous small cracks, which I have patched. I don’t think regular paint will cover them up ...

Question: Every year I notice cracks to the walls above some doors and the latches don’t work. I fix the cracks but I don’t know how to fix the latch, and the door will not lock. I need to know what ...

Q. In the 1840 section of our house, we thought the staircase walls might be the old horsehair plaster because the wall is quite wavy. I discovered (the wrong way) that there was an air-pocket defect ...

Q: Just off the side door in my house are the stairs that go down to the basement. The ceiling overhead is sloped where the underside of the stairs to the upstairs go. The house was built almost a ...

Do you have a crack that goes across your wall, maybe over a doorway or a corner of your room? You might have tried to fix it, but it returns just a few months later. Perhaps you even had a ...

This is the first in the occasional “House Hell” series: Our homes are our most precious and scary possessions — precious only when they do not threaten us — but the threats are never-ending. What ...