Skim over woodchip?

Lips

The title is the gist of my question. My new house has almost every ceiling covered in woodchip or other textured paper....then painted....multiple times, it seems. :rolleyes:

To save me the mental anguish that stripping would evoke, could I simply get a plasterer in to skim over it, or would I just be banking myself some problems for the future?

Cheers, in advance...

- Lips

colin13

u could get backing paper the thickest 1 u can get, tht might do it , and sae u all the hassle of getting a plasterer in to skim over everything but then again u r only ading to the amount of paper and paint u have on walls already

m_13

Been there myself so feel for you. Last but one house had it painted in layers of gloss paint.

You can buy a product called Smooth Over for this exactly this problem but, and it's a big but, if you need to do other work that might involve plastering such as chasing in surface electrics then you might as well strip the lot off and start again.

There are products that claim to remove painted wallpaper, here's one and another one. You can also score the wallpaper with a special tool to allow a steam stripper to work.

Lips

Thanks for that, folks.

I'm actually cool with the notion of getting a plasterer in (despite, of course, the prohibitive cost...) as it means I just have to stand by, supervising . I was wondering more if it's considered 'good practice' or otherwise to skim over wallpaper. I don't want to shell out a fortune to get the ceilings skimmed, only to discover at some point down the line that the plaster starts falling off because it was put on top of paper.

Any thoughts...?

- Lips

save-a-lot

if removing the woodchip is not an option, have the ceiling reboarded and skimmed. You can board onto the existing ceiling ensuring you find the joists, or get the plasterer to do this for you... ends up giving a far nicer job

Bungarm2001

I'd be absolutely stunned if you managed to get a plasterer to do this...I've asked one or two in the past as I have had this same problem a couple of times and one of them barely spoke to me for a week and the other larffed and walked (ran) away!

Nope...I think you're going to have to bite the bullet and get stripping. To be honest, if it's been painted over that many times you might be pleasantly surprised and find it comes off a lot easier than you think. (I did say 'might!' lol)

It's what's lurking underneath that would worry me!

woodbutcher_2

I wouldn't do it.As tough a job as stripping woodchip is,there is no alternative if you want to skim it.You may be lucky if you strip it,may not need plastering.Depends on the age and type of plaster on the walls.Ceilings can be overboarded and skimmed,saving work but walls need stripping back.Any stud walls,it may be easier just to strip back to wood and reboard/skim.

keith1966

we had woodchip on ceilings of our house and thought long about the solution. we ended up getting a professional painter and decorator in to strip off, this did cost us. we were advised against skimming on top of paper. we then had the ceilings skimmed and it was the best money spent on the house. to give you an idea of cost we paid £580 to get ceilings stripped then £1000 for plaster plus coving. our house is 3 bedroom, fairly small family home. hope this helps

keith1966

ps, we also had burst pipes in the house at Xmas when on holiday and flooded the house. the newly skimmed ceilings were ruined. I do not advise doing this!

Lips

Wonderful... :rolleyes:

I've already got a serious case of 'stripper's elbow' after doing the walls, so have been bodyswerving even the thought of starting the ceilings. They're 10 feet high, so I'm going to have to invest in some sort of staging. When you add to that the cost of the gallons of gin that I'll have to drink just to get me through the whole process, I'm beginning to think that I'd be better off hiring in a pro.

Thanks for the tips anyhoo...

- Lips

save-a-lot

seriously, reboard the ceiling... far easier and not that hard to do really with 2 working at it. I have done this a few times. It does take 2 people though. Scraping that woodchip is a far harder job than fixing new boards.