Repairing Plaster Walls

[Housepoor]

There has probably been a post like this already but I didn't find the exact answer I needed in the search so here goes:

We are renovating an older home that had been wood panelled everywhere.

When we removed the wood panelling...there was the original plaster. In most rooms, we had to drywall over as there was too much damage to the wall but in the room we are currently redoing; there is only one or two small holes but otherwise, the walls are in fairly good condition.

Here is the problem....though the walls appear fairly smooth, there is about 5 coats of wallpaper and paint and if you look closely, you can see seams where it looks like the plaster might be cracked underneath.

If we remove the wallpaper which is what I've read we should do (but would not be easy)...the whole wall could fall apart and we'd have done all that work and have to drywall anyway.

Is there a compound we can use that can go right over the existing wall paper/plaster that will allow us to patch up the rough areas? Something we could roll on maybe that would give a fairly smooth appearance?

Thanks in advance!

[HayZee518]

I really wouldn't want to put anything over the existing wallpaper. if the paper is loose in any area then the whole thing could come down if you skim coat the paper. RED DEVIL has a tool called a razor knife. it has a four inch wide razor blade in a handle - the blade is cocked at an angle and you use two hands on this thing and scrape off the wallpaper. for repairing plaster walls [holes, cracks] use plaster of paris. don't be sloppy putting this stuff on it cures quickly and is very hard to sand smooth.

[Allison1888]

repairing plaster walls

You don't want to add any more weight to the walls. You're going to have to make some judgment calls about where you can get away with delicating removing wallpaper and using joing compound to fill cracks and where you have to give up and do drywall. Sometimes you don't know until you're half way into it, which is the bad part.