I've done a lot of reading and a few days of preperation to get to this point, but I think I'm going to paint over the bottom layer of wall paper in the new house I'm moving into. I'd like to lay out my plan and hear any constructive responses--especially related to actual experiences that have gone well or otherwise. The 2000 square foot house has wall paper on about 60% of the wall area. We've successfully removed the paper from the bathrooms and bedrooms, but the hallways are a different story. These areas have two layers of paper--paper backed vinyl over real paper (patterened paper). The vinyl comes off without much problem. If the older layer came off even with twice the work, I wouldn't be writing this. The paper went over unprepped drywall and is really stuck on. After taking off the top layer on a 6x8' section, I've spent about six hours on the older, paper layer. I started with Paper Tiger + DIF and time, scrape. Steam didn't seem to help. I then tried 60-grit sandpaper and Safe & Simple. I worked with a scraper and moved from the top/bottm and seams taking off as much at a time as I could. I worked slowly and patiently and gave the remover time to work and kept it wet (20 min or so to sink in). As I said, these techniques have sucked up about six hours of my time for what's a pretty small section. Tomorrow I'm going to give the sandpaper & Safe & Simple another shot, but if it proves to be just as difficult, I'm going to remove the top layer, wash off the residual adhesive with a wet sponge, and then paint with a sealing primer as recommended in the FAQ (great FAQ, by the way). After priming, I'll hit the seams and tears with joint compound and then paint. Any tips? What has your experience been? I've been very uneasy about bucking conventional wisdom here, but the paper seems to be on for good. If there was less paper, I'd suck it up and just take it off slowly, but this runs the length of the upstairs hall, down the stairway, in the entry, and into the kitchen. It seems to me that an oil-based primer would be less prone to produce any lifting of the seams or otherwise loosen the adhesive. Comments? Thanks for any help. Tim

What's the next step now that my wall paper is down? Here's my plan: Wash walls well to remove residual adhesive and remaining paper 'bits.' Use a quick-drying joint compound to patch the holes in the drywall paper Prime using a good sealing primer Paint Should I prime before patching? If so, do I re-prime the patched areas before painting? Should I use an oil-based or latex sealer? Can I spray (commercial spray unit) the primer? Sorry if this crosses the line into painting--I looked through recent posts there and didn't see anything regarding post-wall paper repair/painting. Tim