Best way/option to paint walls after removing wallpaper? Old paint and plaster left

chi2000

Hi all,

I'm after some advise. I have stripped the wall paper in hall way and stairs and am now left with a mixture of old pain and plaster. I want to paint the walls, what do you think would be my best option as I think just sanding the walls down and painting on top of them it is not going to give a good even finish?

May be remove all the paint down to the plaster? May be use lining paper? Maybe there something out there that I can use on the whole wall before painting it? I’m after any other ideas or suggestions as i'm a bit lost at the moment.


Here are some picture to give u a better idea.





Thanks in advance.

jtb2412

Looks like exactly what we've just had to combat - don't live next door to me do you?

We've used lining paper. Short of re-skimming the walls (which will be expensive) I think that's about the only option left. We tried sanding but just couldn't get a smooth enough finish. The lining paper is about £2.50 a roll so if you can put up with the odd vertical line (depends how good your papering is !) then i'd say go down the lining route. Paint goes on nice and evenly too but it might soak up quite a bit more paint than if you were painting straight on to plaster.

Someone else may have another option though.

HTH

Mikeyorks

As previous post .... you use a lining paper (reasonably heavy ... as the very lightweight ones tear too readily once pasted and when in the large drops you need for a staircase) and then paint over it. That's assuming you're using water base paint and not gloss!

Putting the lining paper on needs skill. You need to get a perfect butt joint .. or leave a fraction gap and then fill over with fine surface filler. If you overlap the lining ... it will look awful once overpainted.

Personally on that staircase .... I'd re-paper it for best effect!

moneylover

my son is going to have same problem with a flat he is moving into. Even the ceilings have been papered with lining paper but its all now at the point where lifting off at the top of walls and behind radiators. Is it better to use one of the slightly textured papers as you may get a better finish on the joins? Otherwise what is average price to re skim a room as may not work out much more expensive if paying someone to paper anyway?

George_Bray

chi2000 wrote: »

I have stripped the wall paper in hall way and stairs and am now left with a mixture of old pain and plaster. I want to paint the walls, what do you think would be my best option

I've just done almost exactly the same job. Your second photo (stairs) looks almost identical to the condition of my walls after I'd removed the old wallpaper.

My friends all suggested using ling paper as an easy route towards repainting the walls with emulsion. I decided NOT to use lining paper for two reasons:
1. The joint lines might be subtle but I'm looking for a better quality finish than that.
2. The next time I need to redecorate, I fear the lining paper might bubble up and/or cause other problems.

No, I decided to go for a new, solid base as a better foundation for the emulsion. Here's what I did and why:

1. I cleaned the walls (like yours) with sugar soap solution to get rid of wallpaper paste residues.
2. I applied dilute PVA (5 water to 1 PVA), all over. This really seemed to stabilise the slightly 'flakey' surface.
3. I filled all the pits in the surface with gypsum plaster (larger holes) or Polyfilla (smaller blemishes). When dry, I rubbed all this down until the surface was as flat as I needed. There were a few more iterations of filling and rubbing down, with the surface becoming more perfect each time.
4. Apply dilute matt emulsion (not vinyl or silk) at about 10 paint to 1 water.
5. Apply 2 coats of neat emulsion (matt, silk or whatever you want).

Regards
George

Poppycat

We have two celings, one on a landing another in hallway that is pretty bad. We just taken of some polystyrene tiles, the landing wasnt as bad as the hallway, but it has reside of glue for the tiles and old wallpaper, theres also a small 3-4 mm gap between wallpaper on where the tiles were, but fortunately the landing had coving so we filled the gap with decorator's filler. We are trying to get the adhesive off with scrapers.

The hallway is much worse, large cracks and under the paper it seems to have some yellow substance that is ripped effect, I am tempted to get that re plastered.

salbot

Use lining paper, my walls were just like that, if you don't line you will see every lump and bump. Lining gives a really good finish.

Salbot

George_Bray

salbot wrote: »

Use lining paper, my walls were just like that, if you don't line you will see every lump and bump. Lining gives a really good finish.

Ah, but lumps (high points) can be scraped off or sanded back to level with the surface. If you don't do that, they're likely to show through lining paper, even. It's so easy, why skimp?

And pits/holes (low points) can be filled in with plaster and or Polyfilla like I did. That's also easy, so why skimp?

It's so easy to get a stable, level, rock solid surface, like I have - why on earth use lining paper?! Do it right and do it once.

One further point: I know you shouldn't apply PVA (dilute or otherwise) to a surface that you want to emulsion. The paint won't adhere properly. I used PVA to stablise the surface but it was virtually all coverd by a wafer thin layer of plaster/Polyfilla later, so I trust that's OK.

If you call in a plasterer to skim the surface, he might apply about 3mm of plaster and it could cost £hundreds. Who needs that? In places, the additional depth might be inconvenient. Then there's the weight of all that plaster, pulling down on the ceiling. (I used a similar approach for my previously Artexed ceilings, as on the walls.) And the plasterer's surface probably won't be smooth as what I achieved.

chi2000

George_Bray wrote: »

4. Apply dilute matt emulsion (not vinyl or silk) at about 10 paint to 1 water.
5. Apply 2 coats of neat emulsion (matt, silk or whatever you want).

Regards
George

I've used easi-fill in your stage 3 so do you think there is still a need to use a mist coat of contract matt (non vinyl) before the top coat?

Melodyx

I've saved as much money as I can re-decorating the ground floor of my house, but once we'd stripped off the paper in the lounge and seen the state of the walls I almost went for the lining option but at the last minute decided I wanted it to look really good and to be able to re-paint with ease whenever needed, so we hired a brilliant plasterer (who also covered up the artex on all the ceilings) and I have to say that I have not regretted one penny of what I spent as the finish looks so sharp and I know we could never have achieved that ourselves...

moneylover

My son has old paper painted over many times and now all bubbly in places. We want to take it off - is a wallpaper stripper machine okay or does the wall end up more flaky than if you get it off by hand? If we buy a wallpaper stripper is there any particularly good model on the market?