Paper over panelling nightmare

[Doug Kanter]

(Maybe)

Moving into a new house this week. In one room, the original owner had paneling. The current owner bought some sort of paper at Home Depot, made for covering paneling. It was a bedroom for two little girls. The paper's some sort of sparkly pink crap. On top of that, they put a fairy-tale border near the ceiling. This is going to be a home office, and I'll hurl if I have to look at this for more than a few weeks. :-)

I've removed wallpaper borders before, but only from painted surfaces, and it was easy. But, I get the feeling that if I remove the border as in the past (sponge, warm water, gentle scraping), I'll ruin the paper underneath, making it impossible to paint. And, that leads to another question: If the border wasn't a factor, could I paint over this type of paper?

Or, should I just bite the bullet and rip off the paper, paneling, and deal with whatever the plaster looks like underneath? I have no fear of plaster repair, but I'd rather be doing other things.

[Mark]

Rather than do that, resurface all the walls with thin sheetrock. Little more money than stripping, but probably a Lot easier.

[rck]

I have paneling throughout my house and it looks terrible, like a 1996 trailer home. What is the thickness of "thin sheetrock"?

Bob

[chuck yerkes]

Either channel your inner 8yo girl or pull the paneling and put up sheetrock. If the room becomes 1/2" smaller, is that fatal to you? I mean moreso than the little girl room?

Paneling bad.

[chuck yerkes]

Oh yeah, when you pull it all out, you have access to studs and can run the wiring you want for a home office and part of the house of 2004. A pair of coax and at least 2 CAT5 to two opposite corners (and perhaps a cat5 from one to the other side) means that you have network and phone and whatever else the near future holds on BOTH sides of the office. Run it down to some room you declare the "wiring closet" and slap in a patch panel.

When you want to add a WiFi AP somewhere in the house, you can connect it to the office through THIS.

[Joseph Meehan]

3/8"

[Joseph Meehan]

While you could drywall over what you have, but it likely already has many layers on and I would tend to want to remove the paneling and work from there.

[Curmudgeon]

The heavy paper you're seeing CAN be painted over. And, I think you may be pleasantly surprised at how easily the border comes off. Try that first...you have nothing to lose. I am stripping the same kind of paper off a bathroom wall, and the top surface comes away easily, leaving the heavy paper base (over paneling). Painting is then no problem. But I agree, that if that doesn't work for you, it would be simpler to remove the paneling than to try and sheetrock over it....AND the bonus of being able to rewire or run cat 5 networking and phone lines.

underneath,

[Eric Tonks]

Plus add some extra plugs, re-insulate the outside wall with better insulation then install a new 6 mil vapour barrier. The resulting room will be better than any other in the house.

[Doug Kanter]

...skylight, built in refrigerator, heated floors... :-)

Some office! :-)

[Claudia]

My vote is rip out the paneling and deal with whatever you find underneath. and who knows - you may be surprised - OR NOT. Altho channeling the 8 year old girl in you is not a horrible idea . __________________________ Totus Tuus Claudia Satori