Paint over wallpaper or strip, line and repaint?

KateLiana27

The house we're buying is covered in a single, unpainted sheet of evil-coloured wallpaper. We had a highly recommended decorator in who advised if we removed the wallpaper we will likely need to line the walls with lining paper before painting in order to get a smooth surface, and quoted us for this.

I'm wondering if we're going to end up painting over lining paper anyway, would it be completely unthinkable to just paint over the existing wallpaper? Or is that a big no-no? Are there any alternatives to lining paper?

tanith

It depends on what state the walls are in underneath the paper I managed to strip my upstairs rooms and found the walls were good enough to paint over and they look really good... but the downstairs weren't so good... I've painted over the wallpaper a couple of times as it has a raised pattern and it does look fine.. it just depends on you really, if you can live with the wallpaper painted over then I'd say go for it if the paper is in good repair. But if you will always feel its a second hand job then start stripping but be prepared to repair the walls underneath before you line it and paint.
I'm sure there will be some of the opinion thats its an absolute no no but personally I think it looks fine and it sure saves a lot of elbow grease..

CFC

It depends on:

how much you want to spend
how long you're going to live with any problems.
how well the paper was stuck to the walls originally.

You'll get away with painting it once if it's not stuck on well, but when you want to change the colour again you'll probably need to bite the bullet. If you need to put lining paper up to then paint over, you might as well paint the evil wallpaper, and then at some point strip the walls and get them skimmed if they are bad. The labour costs for repapering will probably not be that far off from reskimming and no wallpapering is ever perfect if the walls are a bit scabby. If you have it skimmed you will be able to paint over it whenever you choose for ever.

loracan1

I've painted over wallpaper more than once and never been disappointed. Might depend on the finish how well it covers though.

nickj_2

if you do strip the wallpaper off you will have to remove the paste before painting , either paint over wallpaper - try a wall 1st to see how it looks , or strip and re line

Leif

Sometimes wallpaper is there for a reason other than a liking for wallpaper. If the walls beneath are sound, but a bit pock marked, it is not that hard to fill and sand with something like Easi-fill, but not Polyfilla. It can be time consuming and tedious. And before you fill, wash off the existing wallpaper paste or the paint will bubble. If there is paint beneath the wallpaper, you might have to strip it if it is flaky/loose, or fill and sand. If you are lucky, the existing wallpaper comes off in sheets along with any underlying paint.

To strip wallpaper, I do not recommend steamers. They will blow any plaster that is not soundly attached, and that might mean reskimming is needed, or if you are lucky, some holes that you can fill.

Or as said by others, strip the wallpaper, then line with smooth or patterned lining paper, and paint. Most houses I lived in as a child had flock lining paper painted beige or white.

KateLiana27

Thanks guys. We don't mind paying extra to get the best finish, so maybe skimming is something to look into. It just seemed a bit counterintuitive to pay to have wallpaper stripped and then pay to have another type of paper put up in its place! Might try stripping a bit in a hidden area and see what the walls are like underneath before we decide.

yumyums

We've done two rooms in our house so far. The walls in one were so bad after stripping we had to have them skimmed.
The other ones were in a decent condition. Getting the wallpaper off was easy enough but there was an awful lot of paste left behind. We had to go over it again with a steamer to loosen the paste, scrape it off, then wash it down with sugar soap. I then spent a lot of time with pollyfilla & sandpaper and ended up with a really good finish. I did a mist coat of watered down emulsion before painting the proper coats too.

It all depends on the condition of your walls and how much time you want to dedicate to it. I had a lot of time so was able to put the work in, but you might find it more worthwhile to get a professional in if not.