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Paint Home Repair DIY

Painting over Wallpaper or strip?

10 months ago

Hi all — my property is over 80 years old. I started stripping the wallpaper and took out plaster and some cement apparently. Upon close inspection the whole place is covered in wallpaper painted over. A contractor said wouldn’t be worth stripping and to just paint over the paper. Is that recommended? Can I sand the paper? How hard would it be to strip painted wallpaper?

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Comments (8)

User
10 months ago
Well my house was all painted wallpaper when I moved in (apart from one room). The hallway had 3 layers of wallpaper! I opted to strip the wallper and repair the walls before painting. Mainly because I don't want textured walls, but also because it's the right thing to do. Painting over wallpaper is the lazy option IMHO and can hide all manner of issues that should be sorted out before decorating.
User
10 months ago
Buy or hire a steam wallpaper stripper, they're not expensive.
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Elnaz S Nobari
Original Author
10 months ago
Thanks so much! Is that to be used with a heat gun, or on its own?
Elnaz S Nobari
Original Author
10 months ago
@sarah L did you also remove the ceiling?
User
10 months ago
Fortunately all my celings are flat painted. I think they may have been stripped and skimmed before I bought the house. A wallper stripper is used on it's own. Can be bought from Screwfix, Toolstation, B&Q, Wickes, etc. If you hold the steam plate on too long, the plaster can come off too and the walls may need to be skimmed afterwards.
Sonia
10 months ago
Ideally strip the wallpaper. One reason not to paint wallpaper is the nightmare to get it off! Buy or hire a wallpaper stripper. Once it’s all off you can fill and sand any holes, but if lots of the plaster has fallen off you may need a plasterer to skim it. Depends on your budget, but painting over it is never that great.
PRO
Paintforme
10 months ago
Hi Elnaz,

To remove, or not to remove - this is the question!

It depends on your quality requirement and budget. If you are okay with the look of it at present, then paint over is fine. Yes, you can sand painted wallpaper, as long as it's not textured wall covering (you will damage the paper and it won't look good). However, if you think that the present look is not so good and you wished to remove the paper, then it's worth engaging with a pro. This is pretty inconvenient and time consuming task, and you may create more damage to the surface, creating more work before you could paint over.

We hope this helps!

https://www.paintforme.co.uk/
PRO
Pearlosa
10 months ago
If it is your own home which you plan to live in for good, I would definitely suggest stripping wallpaper.

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