Wallpaper removal repairing damage

Hi all,

The wallpaper in the bedroom was put on top of a painted wall. When we removed the wallpaper it pulled off some of the paint back to the plaster. We want to now just paint the wall. What is the best way to deal with this? Should I used a watered down paint again where the plaster is exposed? Also how do we stop the line between the originally painted bit and the now plaster exposed bit from being seen when we paint the wall?

Thanks in advance

Lee.

Ugh, in one room we had to get the wall repapered with a lining paper. Brian

You will find it very tedious to do other than reskim the entire wall area. You could sand it all to about flat fill in any gaps and reseal and paint. Then you will see every tiny piece of the old wallpaper that was stuck to the wall as an imperfection in the now plain surface.

If you are prepared to keep at it you could do it by painting it and then fixing the most offensive bumps and lumps. Expect to spend a long time doing it though. It is very hard to go back to painted walls once you have put wallpaper up. Sometimes the heavy anaglypta wallpaper which is the very devil to remove was there to hide faults in the wall like cracks and dodgy plaster.

At our last house we removed some anaglypta from a wall to find the wall had been gloss painted and quite a bit of the paint came off with the paper. Rather than a complete plaster skim I opted for an application of dry wall filler applied with a float. I managed to get a reasonably smooth finish that required some sanding. You do need to apply a sealant which can be pricey and comes in 10 L drums but coving sealant is the same stuff and can be bought in smaller quantities. Afterwards paint as normal. Admittedly, it was only an 8? x 4? section but at the time if I had to do a full room I would have done it.

Richard

Use a thick, good quality lining paper that'll cover the imperfections.

That would be my strategy too. It needs to be well soaked, and applied carefully, but with practice you can make the joins invisible under a single coat of emulsion.

If the original paint was gloss, or multiple layers of emulsion, it may be worth sanding to feather the "steps".

I did that on a ceiling a couple of years ago, using the heaviest lining paper I could get. Every time I walk into the room I grumble and regret not having it skimmed because the dips are visible.

To the OP: get it skimmed.

yes. We've a lot of anaglypta. 1911 house.

Dips are a different matter and no superficial/small. My ceilings have cracks between the boards, very difficult to hide as the trains vibrate the house at times. OK, cracks aren't superficial but are small enogh to be covered IICBA. Most of the walls are bloody woodchip so lining paper wouldn't hide that completely - I'd just accept it as a 'feature' because if I try to remove the woodchip the whole wall will need to be skimmed. Ceilings are the worst though. I had to make some holes, fitted board and joined it OK then repainted. I had only matt white and the rest is satin. At certain angles from uplight the matt looks grey.

In this case a previous owner had used embossed paper on the ceiling, when I stripped it some of the original 1930s paint (shiny, and nicotine coloured) came off. I tried to feather the edges but really really really should have had it all skimmed or over-boarded. We live and learn.

Agreed - I have done up over ten houses - your only solution other than skimming the walls.

It will look terrible if you simply paint over.

PS: I stopped using lining paper a long time ago - a lot of work to get it perfect. Now I always skim and paint over.

You'll be surprised how inexpensive skimming can be. Find a good plasterer and buy and bring all the bags of plaster yourself - they cost next to nothing, and then just pay him his daily rate.

Use fine wet and dry, with water to feather-edge the edges of the paint.

They might continue to flake after the water has dryed, so you could try and remove the rest of the paint with a decent flat blade scraper. I had to do the party wall where the stairs go up after removing vinyl-silk painted woodchip..

is this a joke ?. Good plasterers know how much they are worth, especially in the South, South east