Pre-treatment of walls before papering?

[al]

Just taken down 3 layers of crappy wallpaper from my hall, landing & stairs after two gut-wrenching weekends with a steamer and various scraping tools!! Have sanded down the plaster to smooth it off and I'm going to fill the bits where the plaster fell away (about 5 holes of up to 30cm diameter) with possibly some PVA and Pollyfilla.

Question is ... all is a bit dusty after all the sanding (and more sanding to come after I fill the holes!). Is it best to prime the wall with something first before trying to hang wallpaper? I've heard using a highly diluted wallpaper paste solution can help prepare the surface ..?

a

[Stuart Noble]

Paint it if you have some old emulsion lying around. Doesn't achieve much other than allowing you to slide the new paper around more easily. If it's an outside wall and there are signs of damp use an oil based paint instead but the fumes are pretty bad over such a large area

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you get some one coat patching plaster from a shed and follow the instructions, you shouldn't need to sand it afterwards. Cheaper and better than Pollyfilla too.

[al]

Is it worth coating in PVA first to get rid of any dust? Or will that interfere with the wallpaper paste?

a