Plaster walls and ceilings from the 20's would most likely be wood lathe.
After many years, the plaster squished between the lathe,(keys), falls off,
and the plaster looses much integrity and cracks and falls off. Papering
over it helps to keep it intact, and I'm sure you can patch and repaper to
keep it looking decent. Ideally, removing the plaster and lathe and
installing sheetrock would be a good solution, or sometimes you can have a
3/8" layer of sheetrock installed over the plaster.


"Chris" wrote in message
ps.com...
I live in an 80 year old house with plaster walls. The majority of
walls/ceiling are covered in wall paper with coats of paint on them.
Hence, I am getting cracks, bubbling, areas which are pulling away from
the wall..

What's the chances of the wall paper covering up a problem of old worn
plaster?

a friend of mine told me the best thing to do is to cut out the
bubbles, and spackle over them, and repaint. Would you say this is the
thing to do? If I remove all the wall paper, I am afraid of just have
cracking, chipped walls, hence the reason for all the wall paper. I
remember my grandfather put up wallpaper in his house in the 50's for
this very reason. Isn't there a way to refinish the surface of plaster
(that I will probably I have to hire someone for..)