OK, some of the woodchip is off..

[Paul Andrews]

OK, some of the woodchip is off.. ..but now we have a pretty horrible surface from the wallpaper adhesive.

This reminiscent of our last walpaper stripping exercise. We never managed to completely remove all trace of the adhesive - it felt very sticky - even after sugar soap.

What's the best way to clean this wall up prior to painting?

Thanks,

Paul

[Chris J Dixon]

I don't want to depress you too much right now, but the received wisdom, and my personal experience, is that, unless you are very lucky, you will only get an acceptable finish if you use lining paper. Even then, after woodchip, you may need to flat it with a sanding block first.

Chris

[Thomarse]

Hi,

I have recently done the same as you, we stripped all of teh woodchip paper from our house we have just bought and surprisingly the walls werent in too bad-a-state underneath! Obviously teh previous owners had a wierd liking for the stuff!

We stripped it all with a steamer, then scrubbed al teh walls with warm soapy water then with a 1/3 plate hand sander with 100 grit paper we sanded all of the walls, which evened out most of the uneveness and knocked off any remaining bits of wood chips and wallpaper paste. We then used polycell basecoat paint - 3 coats, and then top coat. It looks alot better than we had thought, we have an old victorian terrace and so didnt hold out much hope but the results were good, they werent perfect, there are still blemishes, but thats all part of the charachter of an older house.

I pers> Paul Andrews wrote:

[<me9]

The only way I've found is soaking it off with lots of water. Thicker bits can be scraped thinner, but until the stickyness goes, there is a possibility of the paint flaking. A steam stripper may help, but I haven't tried one.

[On Web]

Thanks,

Paul

[Stuart Noble]

Woodchip always seems to have that gluey stuff under it. I imagine it's starch, which would probably respond better to an alkaline soak. Try some washing soda in the water

[Phil L]

More often than not, it's actually size, I used to mix it and apply it for my dad back in the 70's and early 80's, it stinks to high heavens, probably because it's made of fish waste.

To the OP, water, preferably warm, preferably soapy, wet it all 3 or 4 times from top to bottom before attempting to scrape it off, it will then scrape off like..erm..softened glue - you will eed something with you to scrape it off the scraper, a piece of wood or a large rag, the wall will require washing afterwards, with a short bristled scrubbing brush and even more water...failing this you can try and sand it all off, if you don't mind everything in your house being under 3 inches of dust! :-p

[On Web]

It's coming off reasonably well - in two stages: first the scraper tends to separate the painted surface from the back layer,exposing the woodhip, secondly a steamer is working well on the last layer. The underlying paint/surface is a misture of good surface with paint that's peeling.