novice wallpaper troubles

[torge conrad maguar]

Novice has just emptied bedroom of furniture prior to having it recarpeted. The walls have wallpaper on them that have been re-painted with white emulsion.

The person who originally put on this second layer of wallpaper has wallpapered *around* a flat mirror that was screwed to the wall. (instead of undoing four screws and taking it off the wall to wallpaper the whole wall ).

Consequently there is a big square patch of the first wallpaper. I have never done any wallpapering and my neighbour has given me the Readers Digest ' Repair Manual' ( printed 1976 ). Reading all the complications it lists, is enough to put off this novice, and anyway I just dont have the time for this work.

At the moment all I can think of to solve the problem, is to sandpaper the edge of the outermost wallpaper and smear on the good old polyfilla, to try to get a reasonable flat finish to the edges to emulsion over.

Is this the best way to go ? without the too onerous task of a lot of fresh wallpapering. thanks for any advice.

[Newshound]

Is it a textured wallpaper or just "flat"? To be honest I think I would just strip the wallpaper (maybe just from the one wall), then lining paper if necessary, or just paint. I wouldn't even think about with sanding, filling, feathering etc: it will just show through unless you use a lot of time, effort, and skill. Stripping wallpaper with a steam stripper is really easy. Or paint and put up with the "frame" until redecorating properly. Or put up a big poster or picture over it.

[Vødkäjéllÿ]

Don't try to unbodge a bodge, you'll be sorry! You'll end up having to take the wall paper off with one layer of polyfilla. Or end up 'living' with the bodge and it will annoy you every time you look at it.

Take all the wall paper off. It's the best way. Then you can paint, fill, sand, & paint the wall and be proud!

[nightjar]

Wallpaper over the patch with a distinctively different paper and edge with a border roll. Repeat a couple of times elsewhere in the room and call it a feature.

Colin Bignell

[Steve]

Don't do it!

If you do you will regret it later.

It is very difficult to make a good job when there is old wallpaper and your attempts at sanding and filling will make a bad job even worse...

I'm afraid to say that you really need to bite the bullet and start afresh.

Sorry!

Steve

[Owain]

Just put another, slightly larger, mirror in its place. Or if you don't like mirror, a picture. Or move the wardrobes around to hide it.

Owain

[DIY]

If you don't have time to do a proper job then that leaves three options, do another diy bodge, get someone in to do it for, or get something to hide the area.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I bought my first house from a decorator. He and his wife were telling me how they hadn't realised until the day they moved in 4 years before, that the previous owned hadn't carpeted under the bed or the wardrobe or the sideboard, so they'd had to start by getting the carpets replaced. Well, guess what? When I moved in I discovered the _decorator_ hadn't papered behind the wardrobe! Funny how it was comically stupid not to carpet under one, yet perfectly OK not to decorate behind one...

[torge conrad maguar]

Many thanks to all. Of all the suggestions, (one that i'm assuming didn't involve me having to put up any paper) and which addressed the whole wall was:

Take all the wall paper off. It's the best way. Then you can paint, fill, sand, & paint the wall and be proud! ....... Vodkajelly

I had to peel a bit of wallpaper away and underneath was what i'm assuming was 'lining' paper.

If i was to try to use some polyfilla to smooth off the whole wall without using lining paper, what is the best polyfilla to use please?

There are so many variations on the shelves of diy shops and i know from experience some pollyfillas are very hard to sand down.

So is it feasible to forget lining paper and emulsion straight on to a 'filled and sanded' plastered wall? If so what type of polyfilla to go for please? thanks again.

[Stuart B]

Not sure that Vodkajelly didn't mean paper after removing the old paper then to paint it but dunno. If you take off the old paper you'll be left with plaster and who knows what condition it will be in so you will need to fill any blemishes in that and thats what lining paper is for ...to give you a surface suitable for emulsioning .

[Keith Willcocks]

I had a tatty wall that I wanted to paint and am very pleased with the results of using Polycell's Smoothover. It was easy to apply and did the job fine. You may have to buy an applicator tool as well although I used a rubber squeegee type thing meant for grouting. Here is a link to Smoothover

[Lurch]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:20:14 GMT, "torge conrad maguar" mused:

Or the backing of the wallpaper you peeled half of off?

[DIY]

Filler is not meant for whole walls, it is for filling holes and cracks. For a whole wall you need something like Polycell SmoothOver or one-coat plaster.

[Stuart Noble]

The Wickes versions of these plaster substitutes are much better value. I think the OP would be better putting a picture on the wall rather than trying to match the surrounding wall texture. No chance, whatever you use.

[John Rumm]

You will find it very difficult to remove just one layer of paper unless the top coat is one that delaminates easily (like some vinyl papers)

Polyfilla is ok for small cracks and blemishes. Personally I prefer some of the ultra lightweight fillers you can get since they are over paintable in 5 mins.

A tub of ready mixed artex makes for a very cheap and easy to sand filler. Same goes for the filler designed for dry lining (15kg bag for about £10). It goes on easily and is designed to be sanded.

It is, but you will need to assess the state of the wall once the paper is off. Then decide if the effort in patching is greater than in lining etc.