Preparing walls for painting - old paint present

Jan 31, 2007 4 Replies

Hi All,



I need to prepare some wall for re-painting. The walls are made of plaster (c 1965) and have been painted before. After removing wallpaper and tiles the finish is variable, with patches of bare plaster and paint. I have removed all the loose paint but there are a large number of paint 'islands' still left.



I have been scraping (with hot air gun) and sanding the paint off but this is taking ages. SWMBO does not want me to use NitroMors to remove the paint.



Is there a nice quick and easy way to do this? ;-)



TIA, Mark


In a word. No, sanding scraping & a lot of elbow grease, yuo've only got 1 room ive done hundreds over the last 22yrs an the prep is the hardest bit , but makes all the difference in the end, Chemical strippers are not best advised on plaster as it can penetrate and pop back out at a later date & give you trouble.

Just paint the bare paches.

I've just had the same problem after a leaking roof forced a redecorate in the breakfast (I haven't even finished decorating all the rooms in the house, and I need to re-decorate - must try and work faster).

Anyway, I went down the route of lining paper. It's not as smooth as putting a skim on the walls but much better than I had the patience to get through sanding.

I used this stuff

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and even I managed to get a good finish easily.

I was afraid of that ;-). I'm glad I don't have hundreds to do, only a few.

Cheers, Mark

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