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Question about patching a hole in plaster walls
I was hanging a new shelf in my living room last weekend and my drill bit grabbed wrong and I ended up punching a hole about the size of a golf ball right through the old plaster. This is a house from 1928 in Cleveland, so the walls are that old horsehair plaster, not drywall. I tried the mesh patch and spackle route but the patch crinkled up and now I have a bumpy mess. My neighbor suggested cutting out a square and putting in a piece of drywall with some metal lath behind it, but I am worried about the thickness matching up. Has anyone dealt with this kind of old plaster before and found a method that actually works?
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anna_coleman11d ago
Oh man, I've been there with those old Cleveland plaster walls, they're a whole different beast. One thing nobody's mentioned yet is that the mesh patch might have failed because the plaster dust and loose bits weren't cleaned out enough before you started. In my experience, you gotta really dig out all the crumbly stuff around the hole first, almost like you're making the hole a little bigger on purpose to get to solid edges. Then instead of drywall, try using a piece of vinyl-coated metal lath cut to size and screw it into the lath behind the plaster, then build it up with a plaster patching compound in thin layers, letting each one dry overnight. The thickness will match better because you're using the same base material and can feather it out as you go. Your mileage may vary, but that method saved my hide on a similar project.
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