. I have never had such difficulty in removing wallpaper as this. I have tried using plain hot water, and hot water mixed with dawn, hot water mixed with vinegar, and DIF./ After scoring the top vinyl like layer I am able to remove it gradually, but am left with the backing paper which, after soaking well comes off in tiny bits and in places removes the paint in a skin thereby leaving bare drywall showing that the glue is a stronger bond than that of the paint against the drywall. So far have got about 20% done which has resulted in a mix of surfaces some drywall , some glue, and some backing paper which wont all come off.
Before I go onto the next section, I need advice as to whether I should try to leave the backing paper on intact after removing the vinyl and if so what is the best way to prepare and paint. Some of the bottom edges are lifting and some areas the paint skin is just hanging down. The wall itself is textured and painted with a semi gloss. Being as the damage is near the ceiling could I get away without texturing and just filling in the gouges and maybe trying to feather the edges of the paint skin.

 

If you don't remove all the wallpaper now you run the risk of the rest coming loose down the road.
You now know the reason a lot of us detest wallpaper. Often it's a royal pain to remove. Only advice I have is to stay after it, keeping it wet helps.

 

I would try TSP
!!!!!! added to get minimum characters

 

Thanks, I'll give TSP a try

 

If you use TSP be sure to rinse it well as TSP residue can cause adhesion issues with paint applied over it.

 

The admonition about rinsing TSP is true. And make sure you get real TSP. It is harder to find nowadays.
Is the texture on the ceiling the same as on the wall? What is the texture? The reason I ask is because you are going to want to fill the gouges and removed paint. If the texture on the lid and side is the same then you have less masking to do. It looks like a knockdown Fairly easy to match. After all the work to get the paper and backing off don't take a shortcut on finishing the job.

 

TSP was no better or worse than previous solutions. I thnk some of the problem is the type of paint that was usewd which did not bond with the drywall?

 

Seems like loosening the paint might be your best solution. Carefully score a line through the paint below where the frieze ends so you don't pull off a larger area than you wish. Many coatings bond better to paint that the paint itself bonds to the substrate. You are going to do some repair anyway so don't worry about taking off the paint and texture. It would be nice if the drywall paper is in tact but it is not an insurmountable problem if some comes off.
And give whatever cleaning solution you use time to work.

 

Yes, texture is same on ceiling but I have not had much luck in mudding textures in the past so I was thinking of just patching the gouges etc and hoping the texture wont notice as it is cloe to ceiling/ Pix attached of good part of wall showing texture type.

 

We can tell you how to fix this. Get the rest of the stuff off the wall then put up a couple pictures of this quality of the damage and we can tell you how to fix it so it does not show. This is not hard. You have a couple options. Get the hard part done first.

 

Basically knockdown is a splatter coat of thinned down mud with a knife run across it to flatten it out. How thin/thick the mud is along with how long you wait to knock down all play apart in how the texture will look.

 

What he said. It's about mud consistency and waiting time. And mistakes are correctable.