I am getting ready to do re-do another bathroom in my 20+ year old home.

In my last bathroom re-do, I began removing the 80's wallpaper only to find out that it was adhered to unsized drywall. Needless to say I had a long process ahead of me involving damaged drywall, skim coating and lots of priming. It turned out successfully, but with a lot of headaches.

Now I want to re-do another bathroom and I know that the wallpaper was put on in the same way - without sizing the walls first. So this time I would like to try painting over the wallpaper instead of removing it.

What is the best process for doing this? Last time I used a GARDZ primer by Zinsser to prime over the torn drywall. Can I use this primer over wallpaper before painting it? Or is there another product better suited to this application?

What else do I need to do to prep my wallpapered walls for a successful paint job?

I know that bad wallpapering problems are a dime a dozen, so I hope that someone who has already done this can give me some good advice for how to proceed. TIA for your help!

 

. Protect all trim with painter's tape.

2. Cut back all seams with razor knife, apply an odorless, oil-based primer to the walls. Make sure the room is well ventilated and that you wear a respirator. Do not use a latex- or water-based primer, as it will deactivate the glue under the wallpaper and create bubbles.

3. Once the primer is dry, apply the joint compound tp the seams.

4. Allow the walls to dry for 24 hours.

5. Scrape the walls with a scraping tool to smooth out the joint compound.

6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for a second coat.

7. After the second coat has dried, it needs to be sanded using a 180-220grit sandpaper or sanding sponge. Have a lot of light in the room during this step so you can see fine lines, scratches and nicks, which can easily be sanded out. Again, make sure the room is well ventilated and wear a respirator.

8. Clean up all the dust created by the sanding.

9. Now you apply one coat of primer and two coats of paint or more until full coverage is achieved.

 

Thanks for this GREAT step-by-step!

In step 9, do you use the same oil-based primer that you use in step 2, or a different primer?

 

#5 - I would sand instead of scrape

#9 - If all the wallpaper was previously coated with an oil base primer, latex primer will be fine for this step.


btw - wecome to the forums!

 

good advice from "welovepainting" for painting over the wallpaper. The biggest problem with painting over it will be the texture that you see, especially the difference between your mud and the wallpaper, especially after a final coat. So as suggested, make sure you prime and sand a lot. If you can feel the difference, you will see it.

But, since its a bathroom, and I assume not huge, I would still remove the wallpaper. Did you use a steamer your first time? Does the wallpaper pull off, leaving the brown backing on the wall? If so, you will be amazed at how easy the steamer removes the paper, even on unprimed walls. You will probably still damage some of the drywall, but I think it will be easier to repair that with the joint compound than the other.

You can rent a steamer, but they (possibly wagner) makes an inexpensive one (I think 50 dollars or so) that works fine.

 

For the first bathroom I did not use a steamer, I used a circular paper scorer and DIF. The paper did not come off well at all. It came off in little pieces and ripped a lot of the drywall's brown paper with it. It has been several years since I did that project, but I remember only being able to get a few inches off at a time without the drywall paper starting to come off.

By the way - this forum was extremely helpful at the time of that project. Even though I never posted, reading others' posts and using the advice I found really helped me get through that project with as much success as I did.

Thanks!