Hi,
The house is a NYC brownstone at least 100 years old. It has the original plaster walls in the hallway that gets exposed to some moisture and weather changes when people go in and out. The paster has moldings as well as a swirl like pattern.
There are some areas that are loose and could be very easily banged out but hard to match the original plaster work. There are lots of cracks all over that could easily be puttied up. It was suggested to me that the easiest solution is to just sheet rock over all this but I'd like to keep the original quality of the house if at all possible.
My first question is that if the cracks were repaired sooner would that have kept the wall intact?
Secondly, at this stage of disrepair would sealing up the cracks and repairing the loose areas with new plaster and a coat of paint be a good solution that will stand the test of time (or is too for gone for a lasting repair)?
I'll include a picture, might help show how it looks.
Thanks very much, S