Should I wash plasterboard walls?!

kittykitten

I know this is a weird question, but I've just bought my first house and am in the process of stripping the paper in the living room, intending to paint. The house is 17 years old, so I thought walls shouldn't be too bad and all I needed to do was strip the paper, follow my mum's advice re: washing walls to remove all of the sticky paste that's left when you strip paper, and then paint!

Most of the paper has come off fine, but in one corner it's turning into a bit of a nightmare. Firstly there was the hole in the wall - I thought papering over cracks was just an expression until I peeled the backing paper away (wallpaper is coming off in 2 stages, top then backing, no such luck as to come straight off in one stage!) but my dad says he'll fill that hole for me so all ok.

But then I discovered there appears, at least in the corner, to be another layer of paper that has been painted over. It's not wallpaper, and my friend said it might be some sort of paper that they can put straight onto plasterboard instead of skimming (sounds like a cheap scam to me). Some of this paper has come off with the wallpaper, so might have to replace that.

Problem is what I do about getting the glue off the walls? Naively I was expecting the walls underneath to look like when you've had your walls skimmed. But if it's just another layer of paper then straight onto plasterboard (sort of makes sense as the hole kind of looks like theres no proper plaster on it) can I still wash the walls or do I risk turning them into a soggy mess? If no washing, can I still sand them before painting?

I'm hoping someone on here can stop my DIY attempt turning into a complete nightmare!

jc808

Maybe what your friend means is the face layer of paper that is on Plasterboard

If you look at Plasterboard it is a layer of 6mm/ 9.5mm/ 12.5mm solid gypsum sandwiched between 2 layers of paper and wrapped round too

If thats off the board is !!!!ED