I have a kitchen remodel in a 70 year old house that has about a 17" inside radius crown molding made from plaster and steel lath. We eliminated the original peninsula and the home owner wants to change the crown molding, which means destroying a section and rebuilding it to follow the new cabinets. Can I use drywall mud or hot mud over the lath or should I stick with plaster and do it they way they originally did?

I knew it's too much for me and will take too long, so I hired a contractor that I dealt with before for the job. The deal was for him to completely replace the ceiling in the living room, float the walls flat and then re-texture them with the skip trowel/santa fe finish. After that was the primer and paint consecutively. When he was in process of floating the walls I noticed that in some spots, I'd say 25-30% of the surface, the old orangepeal was still somewhat protruding from under the mud after the first sanding and even the second sanding removed just a bit of it, the rest stayed visible and you could feel running hand over it. I told him that I don't like how it looks and it should be fixed before applying the primer. He assured me that "he will take care of it", hate that phrase, means nothing to me. Now after he primed the ceiling and walls I can clearly see where are the spots with protrusions and again, I can feel it. In addition there are some spots where surface looks pitted, like the air bubbles came through the mud at the last stroke of the knife. They are not horrible, but also do not fit with the whole skip trowel texture theme. I am pretty much faced with two choices now, the way I see it. He did not perform that job he promised and reassured me that all is fine. I either have to send him home packing or have him redo the texture at his own expense. He buys the mud and primer to fix what is screwed up. What is the right thing to do? We have no contract, my fault, because I dealt with him before and he just sent me an email with the estimate. :eek: Can he file a mechanic lien on the property if I send him packing?