wall papering

sophieb_3

Hello all,

I've what I hope is a quick question. I'm in the process of buying a house and am wanting to redecorate once I've moved in.

The house is currently decorated incredibly well and professionally, it look beautiful, its just not my style. the big issue is that nearly all the wall paper is textured/embossed and I'm just not a fan, but its dont perfectly: smooth walls and no lines between sheets of paper or anything.

the house is fairly old (around 1900) and I realise that taking off the paper could bring large chunks of plaster with it. I dont have a lot of money so dont really want to have to get someone to replaster or skim the walls.

can I wall paper over the top of textured wall paper? is it likely to stay? i'm not actually fully in love with wall paper, could I put up a lining paper, or a plain paper and then paint over?

also, I have seen an advert on me TV for a product that you can use ontop of textured wall papers to smooth them, like a fresh start, has any one used it? any reviews?

or am I just best to paint over the top of the wall paper so its at least in my colours?

Thanks loads and sorry if this hasn't been as quick as I intended!

Sophie

john0612

It's hard to say really without seeing the walls etc... some old houses have really good walls and if the've been looked after they could be all right , on the other hand they could be a nightmare hence embosed paper to hide everthing.

You could scrape off the embosed part of the paper if you want , really give it a good sand and line with say a grade 1200 paper, might not look 100% but it might be the effect your after.

Skimming the walls would probably cost you £200-£300 per room, you could always get someone on the side to do it and do room by room when you can afford it.

Failing that go round the house again that your thinking of buying and find faults that would "need a bit of money" fixing and negotiate a discount with the seller, thus having extra cash for some work.

As for that stuff , i would forget it.

You can buy paper called wall doctor to hide bad walls and paper over woodchip with it but i think from what i recall seeing it it's all emosbosed so that kind rules that out.

Speaking as a decorator, i would make sure your prep is spot on as more likely than not your walls will be in and out more times than paris hilton in jail.

all the best

HugoSP

Can I suggest you go to DIY nightschool and learn how to skim?

It is actually very easy if you don't want to bother with the ceiling. This is the hardest bit.

Once you are confident then you can take the paper off, knowing that you could reskim if you needed to. If you remove huge chunks of plaster then there is a huge range of ready mixed one coat plaster available to you.