The lath was a thin strip of wood nailed to the studs. A quarter inch thick and an inch and a half wide and four feet long. You nailed the lath in rows across the studs with a quarter inch gap between each strip and the gap was the whole design. The plaster pushed through the gaps and curled behind the lath and the curl was the key. The plaster held itself to the wall by gripping what it could not see. The drywall screws in. The lath and plaster held on by reaching around.

The lath was split not sawn. You took a straight-grained piece of wood and split it along the grain with a hatchet and the split followed the fiber and the fiber was stronger than any cut. A sawn lath cuts across the grain and the cut weakens the wood. A split lath follows the grain and the grain is the wood's own plan for itself. The lath respected the tree. The lumber yard does not know the word respect. The lumber yard knows the word efficient.

The plasterer worked fast. He threw the first coat at the wall with a hawk and trowel and the plaster squeezed through the gaps and formed keys behind the lath and the keys locked the plaster to the wall. The first coat was the scratch coat. The second coat was the brown coat. The third coat was the finish coat and the finish was smooth as glass. Three coats. Three days. The drywall goes up in an afternoon. The difference between three coats and one sheet is the difference between a painting and a poster.

The lath and plaster cracked. That was the complaint. The house settled and the plaster cracked and the crack was the evidence of movement and the movement was the house breathing. A house that does not crack does not breathe. A house that does not breathe does not age. A house that does not age is not a house. It is a box. The crack in the plaster was the house telling you it was alive. The drywall tells you nothing.

They tore out the lath. The renovation meant ripping the plaster off the walls and pulling the lath off the studs and the old nails screamed when they came out. Behind the lath they found newspapers from 1890 stuffed in for insulation and horsehair mixed in the plaster and a child's shoe hidden between the studs for luck. The lath and plaster wall was an archive. The drywall is a blank page. Nobody will find anything behind the drywall in a hundred years because there is nothing behind the drywall except pink fiberglass. Pink fiberglass is not a message. Pink fiberglass is insulation.

See also: Wattle, Daub