I have been stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen. On one patch of wall, after removing the paper, the plaster beneath has been painted with emulsion. This emulsion coat is flaking off -- even a light scrape with a wallpaper scraper releases loads of emulsion flakes onto the floor.
What to do? Scrape as much of the emulsion off as possible or seal the flaky emulsion somehow.
My initial idea is to run a vacuum over it and get most of the flakes off without causing too much mess.
Bruce
What do you plan to do with the wall when you've finished stripping?
Put some thick wallpaper. Easy to hang and it will hide the imperfections. I think I'll just vacuum off as many flakes as I can then bang the paper over it. And forget about it.
Bruce
I have just done roughly the same thing. a 50/50 pva / water solution painted roughly over the wall sealed it up nicely... and gave a good key for the paper to stick too.
Thanks. I've never used this PVA stuff before...do I clean brushes in hot water after use? Or so I need white spirit?
Bruce
I was also about to say, I'd treat the walls with PVA first! A 1:4 solution would be plenty strong enough; any more is a waste.
PVA is a multi-purpose adhesive; it's water soluble so just wash out under the tap. It comes in everything from expensive little 125 ml pots (woodworker's glue), through 2.5 litre cans of "builder's adhesive" at B&Q, up to massive drums of the stuff at Jewson's.
David
Hmmm...wouldn't wallpaper paste have the same effect?
Bruce
Better than nothing, certainly. However, when you slop on more paste later with the wallpaper, I think it would tend to dissolve your 'priming' layer and you'd get your flakes lifting off again.
Using PVA would involve exactly the same amount of effort as paste, but would dry to make a reasonably resilient, hard surface. And you'd use about, oh, two-quid's worth for a room. Not worth thinking about!
David
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