Insulation!
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the insulation is that a lot of my house didn't have any. They didn't do insulation back in 1895, I guess, and no one bothered to add it afterwards. The house is going to be so much more energy-efficient when we're done.
In this pic, they've punched holes in the original plaster walls on the first floor so that they can blow in the cellulose insulation.
Here you can see the tubes they use to blow in the insulation (from a big truck in the street), and the utter disaster the process makes of the house. Can you imagine trying to live through this?
After it's blown in, they smooth it, I guess? Or pack it? I didn't see this part.
In the roof, they use a different kind of insulation. Umm...I knew what it was called, but have forgotten. It looks disturbingly edible, like cake frosting. And/or alien.
Warm house, yay!
hooray…. insulation done, now the drywall. You mentioned you couldn’t afford plaster. Well if the drywall is done neatly, there is a thin coat plaster or skim coat that can be applied over the drywall that will give the appearance of plaster. But the inside temperature needs to be 50 deg or better for the coating to work.
Otherwise the drywall gets a texture (spatter, orange peel, knock down) coat to even out the appearance of drywall paper and the taping compound. I don’t think that will match the existing plaster. BTW is the existing plaster a multiple layer with a horsehair filled plaster basecoat? That was typical as applied over the board slats. Not easy to reproduce.
Good luck.