Q:We are getting ready to repaint our home office. The walls and ceiling were cracked during the 1989 quake and poorly patched before we moved in. We had the roof redone this summer, and the banging ...

Q Am I right that when sections of plaster break away from the lath, an accepted repair technique is to roughly fill in those gaps with drywall and then drywall over the whole wall or ceiling? — M.H., ...

Q. We're buying a house that is probably close to 100 years old. It has been vacant for the past several years and needs a good amount of cleaning up and fixing up. One thing we're concerned about is ...