Found a great product to refurb those old plaster & lath walls

[MindPilot]

and it's not drywall.

This is fairly complex and expensive, but I've been really happy with the results. As long as the plaster has good adhesion to the lath the only prep is the standard clean the loose stuff, fill and level any defects bigger than 1/8". Then you roll on a latex base material, immediately press in a sheet of very thin fiberglass fabric. It comes in 4-ft wide rolls so you can work with 4x8 panels, then roll on another coat of the base, and move to the next panel. Let it cure for about 48 hours, and it encases the whole room in a one piece cocoon that is a good moisture barrier and is officially certified to seal lead-based paint even for commercial food-processing environments.

Then you can paint, wallpaper, shoot texture, whatever and no more of those little earthquake hairline cracks.

It cost about $300 to do a 11x11 room and took me a long day by myself.
The product is called Nu-Wall by Spec-Chemical. Check them out here,
http://www.spec-chem.com/nuwal/index.htm
and they will send you a free how-to video.

If you think you want to try this, I can offer some tips I learned, not the least of which is don't do it by yourself.

[Jersey Devil]

1. You can do the same thing using canvas

My first house had a lot of water damage to the ceilings due to a leaky roof before I bought the house. My Dad, who was in the insulation business and worked all the time with canvas (wrapping pipe insulation), glued canvas to all the ceilings, applying it like wallpaper with some kind of glue that I cannot recall.

It worked beautifully and was very inexpensive compared to what you are using.

[FloridaPat]

2. Where were you 25 years ago when I needed this information!

Thanks.