Hi friends, In my old stone-built house, I have stripped the woodchip wallpaper off the large wall in the stairwell, and underneath, I find that it was painted wi th cheap emulsion, much of which is flaking off. I also had to remove a lar ge patch of the old plaster+rendering where it was becoming detatched from the underlying stonework (it's a solid stone wall, circa 1850). I've patche d that with mortar, not quite flush, as I was intending to patch-plaster to finish off. There are also some other areas where the plaster was coming a way from the underlying rendering.
Considering of all the above, I'm thinking of skimming the entire wall, bec ause it might end up being quicker than fixing all the above issues. I have scraped off all of the easily-removable flaking emulsion. The remaining 75 % of the wall's emulsion seems sound.
I want to end up with an emulsioned wall rather than wallpaper, because, be ing a very old house, there is a very slight dampness in the wall. (I mean minimal.) I've found that wallpaper does seem to accumulate damp that it dr aws out of the wall, and then the paper become soft and discolouration can occur. I've found that by emulsion-painting such walls, I've had no such pr oblems, because I think the slight dampness can evaporate more easily, and there is no wallpaper to come unstuck.
My question is: Is it okay to skim over the old emulsion paint? Will it sti ck okay? I have some 'Thistle bonding coat' from B&Q. Is that suitable?
Should I spray the entire wall with diluted PVA prior to skimming, or will that inhibit the breathability of the wall?
Many thanks,
Al