Plaster walls can't hold weight on their own, but the right tools can help you hang more than you think. Plaster was the construction standard up until the 1940s, when drywall burst onto the market.

Check the size of your 1/2-in. plywood backing board. Then, cut the fiberglass window screen to be eight inches larger than it in both directions (so there are four inches of overhang on each side).

Hanging anything onto a plaster wall is a bit of a challenge. Depth finders help locate studs behind the plaster, but drilling through plaster and lathe into a stud is often problematic. There are a ...