Walls and painting

digital_biscuit

Hi All

Recently bought a house which needs a lot of tlc and some redecorating to bring it from the 50's into the teenies. I have some questions I am hoping people can help with.

The walls were previously papered, mostly on top of plaster, some on plasterboard and some onto painted plaster. I have removed all the paper and so far from my research this is my plan of attack:

1 - Using warm water and paper scraper to remove the rest of the paper glue.
2 - Sand down the walls to remove any imperfections and any remaining glue.
3 - Apply a base layer.
4 - Paint several layers of final colour.

My questions are:
1 - Is this plan correct?
2 - The base layer - is this by using an actual sealant, something like Gardz, or by using a white emulsion in a 50/50 mix with water
3 - When do I fill any holes/imperfections
4 - Gaps between plaster and plasterboard and walls and ceiling need filling. How do I do this, at which point and with what!

I know that's a lot of questions, but after spending a morning researching this, I am still to find an actual answer.

Many thanks!
Digi

tristinh

We are doing them same and your plan seems very similar to ours (in fact, I thought my other half might have posted this!!)

We used Sugar Soap with the warm water and filled the holes in the plaster before the white wash coat and now are doing it a second time (due to shrinkage) afterwards too.

We have loads of tubes of decorators filler on hand for the next stage too as the gaps ebtween the skirting and the walls, the door frames and the walls and the coving in the corners have big gaps which were previously covered up by wall paper.

Good luck!! :beer:

tristinh

Oh, and coving hides a multitude of sins!!!

YORKSHIRELASS

In our 1940s semi we took the wallpaper off and tried to emulsion the walls but no amount of preparation gave good results. In the end we tried Ronseal Smooth and Repair which was brilliant. We have also used Polycell Smoothover which is very similar. This is not a quick or cheap option but we have found these products give great results on walls that have been previously papered.

The idea is that you apply a layer of the Smooth and Repair over your cleaned and sanded walls to give a smooth finish before painting. You may need more than one coat depending on how rough the walls are. There is a bit of a knack to applying the product but with a bit of practice you can get the walls almost as good as having them re-skimmed.

You will need to fill any big holes or gaps with good old polyfilla first.

digital_biscuit

tristinh wrote: »

We have loads of tubes of decorators filler on hand for the next stage too as the gaps ebtween the skirting and the walls, the door frames and the walls and the coving in the corners have big gaps which were previously covered up by wall paper.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Aren't there a zillion types of filler? Which type would be required? I would have thought that different ones for different types? I have no clue though!

tristinh

We have used polyfiller for the holes in the walls, flexible decorators filler for the joins and wood filler for the small screw holes in the skirting. HTH.

Leif

I had a similar situation to you. I used sugar soap to wash off wall paper paste from the walls but I could not get them clean. So I used Zinsser Gardz to seal in the wallpaper paste residue. It also filled porous plaster. Once done you can apply paint directly, no need to prime. To fill walls, Gyproc Easifill is recommended by many builders, easy to sand, slightly flexible apparently. But ... apply after washing walls, not before as it is water soluble.

I found that after applying Gardz that fine cracks and holes appeared. Perhaps I missed them. Anyway I filled and sanded. When filling, try to scrape the surface flush to minimise sanding ie. try to skim the filler over the surface. You will find that a bright light shone obliquely will highlight imperfection such as holes in the walls that are otherwise not obvious.

I tried Polyfilla from a tube, but it was horrible, very hard to sand. Perhaps the powder form is better, but I doubt any Poly products, those I've tried are shi ... not good.

I have read that for removing wallpaper, fabric conditioner added to warm water does the trick. Take care with a steamer. I used one, and it removed large areas of plaster. Apparently steamers are known for this, and I am sure they are loved by plasterers. I used one on two ceilings, and it did work very very well.

nickj_2

Leif wrote: »

I had a similar situation to you. I used sugar soap to wash off wall paper paste from the walls but I could not get them clean. So I used Zinsser Gardz to seal in the wallpaper paste residue. It also filled porous plaster. Once done you can apply paint directly, no need to prime. To fill walls, Gyproc Easifill is recommended by many builders, easy to sand, slightly flexible apparently. But ... apply after washing walls, not before as it is water soluble.

I found that after applying Gardz that fine cracks and holes appeared. Perhaps I missed them. Anyway I filled and sanded. When filling, try to scrape the surface flush to minimise sanding ie. try to skim the filler over the surface. You will find that a bright light shone obliquely will highlight imperfection such as holes in the walls that are otherwise not obvious.

I tried Polyfilla from a tube, but it was horrible, very hard to sand. Perhaps the powder form is better, but I doubt any Poly products, those I've tried are shi ... not good.

I have read that for removing wallpaper, fabric conditioner added to warm water does the trick. Take care with a steamer. I used one, and it removed large areas of plaster. Apparently steamers are known for this, and I am sure they are loved by plasterers. I used one on two ceilings, and it did work very very well.

steamers aren't known for this , it's the person that is using them that is the problem , if you leave the steamer in one place for too long then it will blow the plaster , the idea is to keep it in one place only for a few seconds ,keep it moving . spiking the paper so the steam can penetrate it will help