Our house has wall paper over almost all of its walls and the previous owner painted over all of it. They didn’t do a particularly good job of either the wall papering or the painting. Now It won’t come off of the wall without also removing the paper from the drywall. I was wondering if I scored and/or sanded the paper/paint if I could get a layer of plaster to stay on the wall and then I could paint the plaster and have nice looking walls like everyone else. I doubt that it would work but thought that I would get your thoughts on this or any other creative solution to this problem.
Thanks for any help.
Will
Replies
your best bet might be to remove the wallpaper -paint combo as best you can and then apply a thin layer of joint compound (a skim coat) level that off then prime and paint. Or you can put a venetian plaster finnish on all your walls LOL. Maybe someone else has a better idea, buts it sounds like a lot of work anyway you look at it.
It'll cost you about $10 for a Paper Tiger and a jug of DIF (or maybe it's DIFF.) The Paper Tiger is about the shape and size of a computer mouse and has toothed wheels that perforate and score the paper. You just run it all over the paper in circles and then wet it down with the solution and go have a cup of coffee. Wait 20 minutes or so and the paper should come off, if not re-wet it and wait again. The stuff really works and the silly little Paper Tiger does a great job without going too deep. I've used this method a few times and it always has worked for me with both paper and vinyl. On vinyl I run the Paper Tiger twice as much as recommended and re-wet two or three times. Let the solution do the work. Good luck.
I know it's nice to remove the wallpaper before re-painting, BUT, if the wallpaper was glued in such a way as to become part of the wall. I don't see the point in removing it. At that point, I treat it like peeling paint... whatever is loose (or will be after getting painted) is removed. Otherwise, prime to prevent bleed-thru, spackle to hide seams and paint.
I have face a quite few jobs where no amount of scoring and soaking had any effect. For all I know, they used water-proof epoxy to glue the wallpaper on.
-Don
Will,do not use a paper tiger to score paper unless you have tried to wet remove paper first. IF you have had any success with wet removal, then go ahead and score and use the dif to remove. It sounds like the paper was hung over flat paint and the walls were not properly prepared for the wallcovering. What I would do if removal is not happening is to mud all seam areas with joint compound, sand give it a second coat, sand, then hit the walls with an oil base primer,Kilz works best for me, then paint, I would use either a SW matte finish or a Moore matte finish. Both are washable and the finish will help minimize walll defects. You stated that you are tearing off the paper layer of the wallboard. use Gardz by Zinsser to prime those areas, then mud. I have had great results with that product, it does not raise the fuzz or grain of the paper on this type of problems. Good Luck. Jim Z
Will, My wife and I had tremendous success with a product called WallWik - its a bunch of sheets of felt-like material you soak in a solution and stick the felt to the wallpaper. 20 minutes later the wallpaper comes off with no effort. It only took about 2 total hours of work time to do an entire upstairs and downstairs hall (although there was some waiting time to let the solution work) which would have taken, easily, 3-4 days with a scraper or steamer. Our wallpaper was on plaster, so it might be differnt for you.
If its on drywall, I'm not sure you can get it off so easily. If you want to get plaster to stick on the walls, you might consider putting up some metal lath first - though that may be a bit expensive and difficult depending on the size of your house.
I think others may not be quite understanding your problem--I've had similar happen when the person who papered didn't prep the drywall first (like not priminmg and /or painting), so the wall paper won't come loose without tearing the paper face of the drywall. I don't think paper tigers or Diff or even steam will help that. Someone mentioned removing what you can and skim coating with drywall mud. That's probably the best answer and about as simple as you're going to get.
I've heard of a product that goes up like wide wallpaper and it's sort of a fabric impregnated with plaster and you get it wet and put it up and it dries to a nice paintable finish that hides lots of flaws. This may work, but I can't even tell you what it's called. maybe others here can help you out with the name and if they've used it, how well it worked.
Score it.
Sand it.
Top with "D-mix"
Just scroll down through the general and techniques sections, looking for "D-mix" in the title. Or do a search on D mix. You'll figure it out quickly enough.
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