Painting over exsisting wallpaper
#1

We recently bought an old house, that requires lots of handy work. The living room walls have been wallpapered, my problem is that when trying to remove the old wallpaper (that has been up since late 50's early 60's, from the design) the plaster from the actual wall is coming with it. The walls are plaster walls. So without having a huge mess, with more costly work involved, what is the best way to paint over the wallpaper?
#2
I am sure some paint may adhere to wallpaper but I dont think the finish would look as good as you might want, I don't think this is a common practice. It may be a pain in the butt and messy but you may want to remove the wallpaper and patch the plaster with mud and then paint. This is just my 2 cents worth.
#3
I agree with the first response. Painting over your existing wallpaper isn't a good idea & I doubt you'll be happy with the results. Stop by your local paint or wallpaper store. There are a few different products on the market that will dissolve the glue and make removing the old paper much easier & generally works without causing the damage to the plaster.
#4
I did it the easy way...
This may not be the proper way to have done it, but it worked fairly well and I was happy with the finish. I got tired of ripping old wallpaper off the wall and everything underneath coming up *with* it, so what I did is: I used joint compoud, troweled it down as smoothly as I could, making sure to do small areas to avoid it getting too dry to work with.
When all the small areas were filled in, I sanded it first with a heavy grade sandpaper to get the uneven spots and then with a very light sandpaper to achieve smoothness. It looks somewhat like a whitewashed wall in the Meditteranean, and i am very happy with the results!
FauxGoddess
When all the small areas were filled in, I sanded it first with a heavy grade sandpaper to get the uneven spots and then with a very light sandpaper to achieve smoothness. It looks somewhat like a whitewashed wall in the Meditteranean, and i am very happy with the results!
FauxGoddess