Patch up plaster or replace - advice needed!!

Hi there… having just bought our first house - a cute 1923 weatherboard Californian bungalow in Melbourne :U:U - am hoping to get some advice from some of the knowledgeable and experienced folk here about how to tackle the cracking in the existing lathe and plaster walls.

I’ve attached a few photos of the worst spots so you can see the extent of the cracking. Most of the cracking is probably very old – the house was restumped about 10 years ago (concrete stumps) but has not been replastered or painted since (judging by the colour scheme I’m guessing the walls haven’t been touched since the fifties!). We’re hoping to patch up the walls, rather than completely replaster. Mostly to save money, but also because we rather like the less-than-perfect look and feel of lathe and plaster walls. (We are wanting to restore rather than renovate the original part of the house – reinstate the original front porch, which was built-in sometime in the 50s, restore the boarded-up fireplaces, polish up the Baltic pine boards etc.)

BUT we plan to be in this house for a while, so don’t want to waste money on a patch-up job if it’s really only a temporary measure. So, my question is, can a good plasterer do a relatively long-lasting fix-up of this kind of damage? And if so, can anyone recommend said good plasterer somewhere around the inner north of Melbourne? OR do you think we really have to bite the bullet and replaster the rooms completely?

Thanks for your help in advance – love this forum, its just awesome!

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