I have some wallpaper that is nearly impossible to remove. I want to paint over it but want to smooth the seams. I have seen other use a skim coat of plaster over the wallpaper to cover it, with good results.
Does anyone have experience doing this? Do I need to skim coat all the wallpaper or just the seams? Any other advice?
Ian
Don't overcomplicate it. Use a rotary sander (cheap disc on a drill, for example) to do away with the seams. Then level the seam area with spackle, drywall compound or whatever, do a quick block sanding, prime and paint. It will help a bunch to use low level lighting (as parallel to the wall as possible) to highlight the seam imperfections as you go. Unless you are a journeyman plasterer, this will turn out far better than skim coating the whole wall. Good luck.
Joe
Have you tried this method? IF I was going to try to level the seams, I'd use a very sharp razor-blade scraper. I have never found wallpaper that would not soak off, using coarse sandpaper to score it horizonatally and spray with water to soften paste, but there is always a chance that it is glued it on with Elmer's, I guess.
I am in the middle of removing wallpaper from a 30+ yr home. The top vinyl wallpaper came off with ease. The layer beneath was thin paper wallpaper that was adheared directly to the sheet rock. Removing this wallpaper endangered the sheet rock, so we're going to level the seams with sanding, apply compound, sand smooth, use an oil-based stain-blocking primer, then paint with a faux texture. I sure hope we're going in the right direction!
Red~
You are doing the correct thing. I't about the only practical thing you can do when wallpaper has been applied to unprimed sheet rock.
It has been done many times before so we know it works.
"redone" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@homerepairlive.com:
Not sure what endangered means in this case.
If there is any wallpaper or wallpaper backing left on the wall, it will bubble in places if you put compound or latex paint on top of it. You need to oil base prime before putting anything, including compound, on the wall. Then do your compounding, smoothing, painting, etc.
You are correct. Priming it first with oil base primer is the safest thing to do.
I run into this quite often. My current preference is to level the seams with sanding, apply two coats of Zinsser Gardz sealer, spackle, sand out, then prime with an acrylic primer such as Fresh Start or Bullseye 1-2-3 latex. From there you do the finish coating of choice. No OB stink and it works better. FWIW YMMV
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