Can this ceiling be recovered?

It started off as a project to repaint the lounge room ceiling but it has grown bigger and bigger.

Ceiling is a 1950s horsehair plaster board.

Originally the paint work was peeling significantly across the entire ceiling as the previous owners had used a water based primer rather than oil based. I set about scraping off the paint, however in doing so created quite a few scrapes into the plaster :doh: No problem, I thought, I can patch them up with plaster later.

While scraping off the paint I discovered that the plaster had begun to sag, and 75% of the nails had popped through the surface. There were also lots of cracks running throughout the plaster. The cracks don't actually follow the joints, but occur all over the place, run in all different direction and don't follow a straight line. The cracks probably occur over 30-40% of the ceiling. I've tried to capture them in the photos below.

http://www.renovateforum.com/picture...&pictureid=148

http://www.renovateforum.com/picture...&pictureid=149

To fix the popping nails, I rescrewed the entire ceilingback to the batterns and punched all of the nails back in. This caused some extra cracking and also the cornice, and central plaster medalion to separate from the ceiling in places :~

I've started patching all of the nicks, screw and nail holes in the ceiling, but have found the cracks to be the most difficult. Because they aren't straight, wander, intersect each other and often run very close to each other, I haven't had much success with using joint tape (see below)

http://www.renovateforum.com/picture...&pictureid=150

I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that there is not much point to continuing to attempt to patch the ceiling and it is beyond saving. SWMBO has already commented that it is time to get someone in who knows what they're doing.

So I guess the question is, can the ceiling be saved, or do I bite the bullet and replace it? If I replace it, is it best to remove the lost, or to over lay what is already there?

Any assistance much appreciated.


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