Hi all,
I recently completed redecorating my Hall/Stairs/Landing.
Previously, it was wallpapered. We pulled off the vinyl surface and steamed off the backing paper. I then used a soapy sponge and scraper to remove as much glue from the walls as I could and then filled any cracks or holes with gyproc easyfill (wonderful stuff!)
The walls were nicely smooth at this point with no glue on the surface however touching them with a damp finger revealed them to be quite tacky still. I suppose that it's impossible to get all the glue out.
I then applied a coat of 5:1 water:pva mix to give me an even base to apply the white base coat to.
We applied a coat of Focus own-brand white emulsion (not the absolute value stuff) to give an even white background. As this coat dried it crackled in places. Not everywhere but just in patches.
It wasn't bad crackling and the paint seemed to be adhering well to the wall so rather than scrape off the offending sections we opted to try another coat of white and see if the crackles came through.
They didn't and so the colour coat (Dulux Once) went on and everything now looks great.
I now have come to redecorate the lounge/dining room. This is covered with exactly the same paper as the Hall/Stairs/Landing was so the experience is likely to be fairly similar.
I'm sure that I was consistent with my glue removal and pva application so I'm wondering what caused the crackles so I can avoid them this time around.
I realise that wallpaper paste is used to 'size' a wall to reduce suction etc and so is pva so in doing both I was going for a belt and braces solution.
Any ideas?
Mike