"Mike Faithfull" wrote in news:xdjbb.1041$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net:
My daughter recently moved into a house having a bathroom decorated
> with wallpaper. The previous occupier left it in a pretty grim
> condition with patches removed and bare plaster showing on the wall
> against which one side of the bath rests. Anyway, daughter has been
> industriously stripping off the wallcovering without actually
> realising that the wall is unskimmed plasterboard on timber studding.
> "I thought this brown cardboard stuff under the paper was a bit
> strange" she said! So, now we have a partly stripped wall with the
> cardboard outer surface of the plasterboard removed over much of the
> area. Her idea was to "strip the paper back to the bare walls then
> emulsion paint them" which probably would have had some merit had the
> plasterboard had a skim coat. Now, I have suggested the only
> reasonable way to salvage the situation without huge (everything is
> relative!) expenditure of time or money, of which she has neither, is
> to buy some cheap plain white tiles and tile the wall. This will have
> a knock-on benefit of permitting her to use a shower which she can't > at the moment.
>
> Does anyone have any better ideas?
>
> Oh, by the way, the first 18" of wall immediately above the bath is
> already tiled - with a double layer, tiles on top of tiles - so there
> will be a bit of a ridge to contend with. The prospect of removing,
> as we should, these existing tiles which are actually in a clean and
> reasonable condition, is not one either of us is prepared to face. > >
Speaking from personal experience of similar bathroom problems in my last house, I would personally go thew whole hog. If you already have a double layer of tiles there, take them all off, get a friendly local plasterer to come and skim thew wall for you then retile properly. You'll be surprised how cheap skimming is, I was when I got it done , and the nice flat new wall will be a lot better to tile onto.
Tiling above the double layer of tiles and using a shower is going to cause problems when the water runs in behind the top layer, which it will, which is startling when they all fall off when you are in the shower (yep, it happened!).
Go on dad, an afternoon with a bolster and hammer will get those tiles off and another day putting new tiles on that nicely skimmed wall is what you're there for ;)