Old owners painted over wallpaper!

[Buttercup]

My husband and I recently bought a house, and in our stairwell and hallway, the old owners had painted over wallpaper. In some spots, they had tried to pull up the paper, but ended up just painting over it. And along the ceiling you can still see the wallpaper that wasn't painted. It looks really bad! Is there any way of repairing this? The paper is on plaster walls too. Thanks for any advice!

[handyandy]

We have redone a couple of rooms where the former owner painted over the wallpaper. One was even on the ceiling! We always removed the wallpaper, and although never fun, we have been glad we did.


What did you have in mind? How are you at removing wallpaper?

[betho]

I'm sharing Buttercup's pain. I have the same problem all over my house - even on the ceiling in some rooms! (I've heard that in the past applying plain, white paper was a cheap and easy way to cover up cracked plaster walls and ceilings. Now it's just a huge pain in my rear end). I started in the kitchen and found three layers of wallpaper on top of two coats of paint and another layer (the original?) of wallpaper. UGH! I want to get down to raw plaster, and I know I'll have some patching to do. Re-texturing is not an option.

I've tried scoring and spraying, but can't get through the paint to the bottom-most layer of WP. Am I going to have to scrape it all off with one of those sharp razor-like scrapers? Any ideas?
Thanks!

[Todd]

If it's really as bad as you say, rent a steamer. It will take a while but it will make the paper bubble up where you can scrape it. There really isn't an easy Way when there are that many layers of paint and paper. Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

T [8D]

[handyandy]

sounds like good advice to me
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[NotNorm]

I need to do the same thing in one room in my house (built in 1905). I already did it on noe room and wound up having to leave some parts alone where the wallpaper was fused so tightly. When I did a skim coat over the entire surface, things worked out pretty well. The only problem I had in a few spots were some bubbles that the moisture from the joint compound caused.

This time I have another room to deal with. Again, multiple alternating layers of paint and wallpaper. The most recent papering job has noticeable seams and was painted over with about three coats of paint! But there appears to have been water damage to one wall because the paper there is bulging out and the wall behind it feels loose like a bag of sand. My fear is that once I start scraping, I'm going to lose big chunks of wall. I can easily repair this, but before I start scraping everything like a fiend, I wanted to know if there was some other way of loosening the wallpaper.

[painter]

When it comes to removing wallpaper there are to types (generally speaking):
Porous and non-porous.
Painted wallpaper falls into the category of non-porous.

Removal solutions and steam work by dissolving wallpaper adhesive and require direct contact with the adhesive to be effective. In the case of painted wallpaper, the paint will prevent the removal solution or steam from soaking into the wall covering preventing direct contact with the adhesive. In this case, these methods will not be very effective.

You can use a scoring tool (there are commercial ones available for under $10). These tools perforate the paper allowing the solution to penetrate behind the paper. I would recommend a gel removal solution instead of the steamer since gels cling to the wall and remain wet longer. They are very easy to use and allow more time to penetrate multiple layers of paint and paper.

Every job is different, but here are some rules of thumb.

First try to peeling as much of the wallpaper off as possible without damaging the wall.
If it is porous, apply the removal solution directly to the wall covering.

If it is non-porous, score it first and use the gel.

At some point, you will get an idea of how hard, or easy, the project will be. It could take hours, days, weeks, even months.

In some cases there is a point of diminishing returns where the act of removing the paper actually causes more damage to the wall than the results are worth. In these cases, you may have to cut your losses and paint over it again.

If you decide it is too much work to get it off, and want to paint over it again. I would recommend a quick dry oil base primer. When dry, Spackle damaged areas and seams. Apply 2 coats of quality paint.

[Rourketman]

I was in the same situation and sometimes it is best to start with a clean slate. What I mean is it is far easier to rip the drywall down and re-hang some new sheets, especially if you can tape and mud. I say this since you will be muddy scratches and gouges no matter what and the most time it will take is a few days for the whole job. Second solution, the same as if it was lead paint "encapsulate" they use to sell a ultra thin drywall for applying over lead paint back in the 80's. If you can find some or another solution like dare I say "paneling", I would jump all over it before I waste a week trying to scrape layers of paint off wallpaper. Anyway, take a whack at trying to remove it before my suggestions. Who knows, it may just peal off like butter.

8-P

Hope it works as well as it did for me! -T

[MrStan]

I agree. My partner and I just bought a nice brick three story in a residential area of our PA state Capitol.... We decided that it would be great to strip off the 3-5 layers of paper, and the two of paint. Which we did, and were left with plaster walls. I did some research on old plaster, and basically, if you press on the plaster, and in moves, it needs cut out and replaced. During our removal project, we were just going to cut these sections out, and patch with drywall. Well, after getting all of the paper off, we have decided that we will have more patched areas than original plaster.

We decided to knock out the plaster, and use all new drywall. I agree with Rourketman, Easier to start CLEAN SLATE.

Wal around your room, if your walls give when you push on them, and you will have to patch more than say 4x8 ft of wall... You may just want to bite the bullet, spend the extra $$ and drywall.

Things are never as easy as they seem to be, are they? I am learning.