Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

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Sara
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Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by Sara »

Okay, I know we've had many threads discussing this process but I don't know that we've had one that actually weighed pros and cons to actually make the decision.

The entire first floor of my house is plaster covered by textured wallpaper (visible floral imprints and the like) - covered by 2-4 coats of paint. No idea what types of paint honestly but it all seems to have pretty good adhesion. The question is how to go about rehabbing the walls. My dad and I are at odds and I wanted to discuss.

A) Remove all of the wallpaper and paint - probably down to the plaster.
How difficult is that? Anyone done it recently? After you're down to the plaster - just skim coat, repair and paint?

B) Just cut out the obvious issues where the wallpaper is wrinkled or whatever, patch, paint.
Do-able. Easy. But the textured wallpaper underneath will be even more noticeable once there are smooth patches right next to them.

Thoughts? Advice? I think know what answer the group will lean to :D but I wanted some real, frank discussion.

raine
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by raine »

This is my entire 2nd floor.
Coats of paint over wallpaper could indicate that the wallpaper was applied wrong (as in my 2nd floor ) and it would take forever to remove.

Removal would be ideal so give it a try. If you give up like I did you can go to plan B. You can use a faux paint technique that would help the imperfections blend in.

Removal memories - That gel doesnt work. Paper tiger doesnt help that much. Soaking , hot water, using an iron, repeat , repeat, repeat. Hardly made a dent. I gave up.

I would have liked to try a steamer made for this purpose but I doubt it would have been enough for my situation. I think the paper was applied over fresh uncoated plaster . You might have better luck.

phil
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by phil »

is it an interior wall or exterior wall, any insulation in the walls?
do a test patch, is there calcimine paint ( water soluble paint) on top of the plaster and under the wall paper?
one reason for wallpaper was for the look , the other is to hide cracks in the plaster. removing the paper might result in a bunch of cracked plaster repairs.
I did some by stripping paper, then washing off all the calcimine paint, fixing all the hairline cracks with drywall tape soaked in glue, then applied corner bead to fix rounded and cracked corners, then skimcoating

on other rooms I simply took a hammer to the lath and in a day you can clear a room of it all , be down to bare studs, then insulate and drywall. This is faster and you then have insulation but if you are in love with your plaster you have to consider that you will loose it.

my house has exterior shingles that are 100 years old so it is less damaging to loose the plaster. on some houses they want to work on the siding and can get insulation in by removing the siding and ship lap.

if it is an interior wall you can leave what you have on the wall and drywall over. if it is a wall with no windows it is easy. If it has windows and you add drywall on top then you need to then deal with the way the window trim fits and you'll bury the window sill by 1/2" or 5/8

if you want to steam off the paper and fix any cracks you can. You have options. if the building has a lot of historical importance that might play on your decision to keep lath with no insulation or to bust it open to insulate.

you might be able to make holes and try to fill the wall cavities but you won't have as good access and you'll have to repair all the holes.

if you are running knob and tube wiring and want to upgrade that of course it is easier to work on wiring when the walls are open but wires can be fished in without breaking walls open too much.

its much slower to retain the old plaster, fastest way is to bust open and re-sheet with drywall. You can save the plaster if it is important to you.

I'm planning to open my exterior living room walls to insulate as I get a lot of traffic noise. the ceiling has acoustic tiles and a high ceiling. all the walls have painted over wallpaper on top of who knows what. mostly plaster.. I am going to leave the interior walls alone and re-sheet over them with drywall and the same with the ceiling. the acoustic tiles help with insulation so I see no reason to remove that or the plaster above instead i will re-sheet with 1/2 inch lightweight drywall.

I will remove my crown molding it isn't original. and I will use the metal/paper corner bead on all corners. it brings the corner in toward the center of the room a tad which allows skim coating material thickness and helps to square up the rounded of cracked plaster corners.

if you want to repair the original plaster you can and others here will help with techniques to do it in a traditional manor or by using modern drywall finishing products if that's how you want to go.

if you open walls they will be full of dust spider webs etc. opening up this kind of mess might upset some and not others and a lot might have to do with how lived in the area is so it's best to have a look at how long you expect the project to last and how much mess you can endure.

if you ever want to divide your house into legal suites bear in mind that you may need 5/8 drywall on any walls that separate the two living quarters, to meet fire code. if you strip to the studs then drywall 5/8ths drywall might be closer to the thickness of your plaster and lath than 1/2 " drywall is. you can get thinner drywall 3/8ths. that is fine for sheeting over plaster walls but it isn't any cheaper. it might be easier to lift.

I think it is best for you to try to put a schedule together and decide about things like if you want to insulate or if your objective is to just do a quick facelift. You can skim coat over wallpaper, it is possible. I think I might be afraid of one of the layers not being a great bond and subsequent issues but it is possible and you can always steam off the paper or bust open the lath even if you put drywall compound over top.

one of the issues with old houses is that the walls are empty and may not have very many fire stops. It is possible then for fire to quickly ravel upwards inside the wall and all that lath and dry studs and open wall cavities can make the fire travel a lot faster than it would if it were built to modern standards, with fire stops and insulation. earlier places sometimes used balloon framing which allowed fire to rush up between the walls.

drywall vs lath.. you will get varied opinions on the historic importance to be considered if you choose to remove your lath and plaster but it's an option. if the room is skim coated and painted nicely it will look the same in my opinion. the plaster echo's more. it isn't bad at stopping sound. but drywall with insulation is better at stopping sound and heat loss.
My opinion resulted in the fact that I'm going to finish to a high level, and it's fastest and best for me to not deal with wallpaper or paint over wallpaper or weak calcimine paint, or the thousands of hairline cracks in the plaster or calcimine paint. i am aware of both methods and choose to just start with a big hammer and go for it, it's the fastest way and then I get insulated walls but it may or may not make sense from your perspective Your house, your decision of course !


Phil
Last edited by phil on Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

phil
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by phil »

if you want to remove the wallpaper , yea I'd rent the commercial steamer for that purpose. If you want to use kettles and things you can it's just slower. Get the humidity up really high in that room, ( like a sauna) boil water in there, a hotplate with a boiling pot, multiple kettles and once you do that you'll have better luck. I found that I could just use a sharp knife and make horizontal cuts in the wallpaper every 6 inches or so and then use a garden sprayer to soak the walls down. Once you do get the water behind the paper it'll come off. Just control the water on the floor with old towels and plastic sheets. I suspect you are struggling because you don't' have enough humidity but when you do you'll find it comes off easier than you thought. I found the "tiger" useless and the wallpaper stripper products as well. I think they are just water with a bit of alcohol. - or just use a hammer .. smack the plaster all over and it'll crumble and fall to the floor along with the wallpaper ;-) you;ll think OMG what have I done but you will get to the point where you have finished walls with insulation faster than you will if you properly deal with the issues of repairing the plaster. after you do the walls nice you won't want to insulate because that will mean breakig open your finished walls so I am not saying this is how you should do it , just consider all the factors before you go putting in a bunch of work and then maybe think oh I wish I had insulation its so cold in this room.

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Corsetière
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by Corsetière »

Personally, when possible, I prefer to really take of the problem all at once, rather than applying temporary fixes. It's a pretty crappy job, but the results are worth it. I just removed all the painted wallpaper in what was the master bedroom of my house. It was time consuming but it went well. It sounds like I may have been fairly lucky because once I scored the top painted layer with the paper tiger and sprayed down the walls with warm water, the adhesive released pretty easily. The room I did is a pretty big room and took me about a day per wall. The ceiling took 2 days because it was stucco on top of wallpaper.

I highly recommend buying one of those garden sprayers to really drench the wallpaper with.
Something like this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/14282634?wmls ... 49&veh=sem

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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by mjt »

We removed all the painted-over wallpaper in several rooms. I fixed cracks, primed, and painted. I've been trying to preserve as much plaster as possible, so haven't ripped it all down unless necessary.

In some cases, the "wallpaper" was on the ceiling.

CS in Low Hud
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by CS in Low Hud »

Every wall in our place was papered when we moved in. I would say that you definitely want to remove the existing paper before painting, at least if you plan to be there a while.

I found that doing one room at a time, over a number of years, was the way to go for me. I had pretty good luck with steamers and good scrapers and DIF, followed by vigorous scrubbing with hot water to remove all of the paste (which will bleed through your paint if left behind), and then a skim coat where necessary to repair cracks worked great. It's tedious, messy work, but you do see the results, which is a morale boost.

Chris

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Sara
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by Sara »

Thanks for the input Raine, Phil, Corsetière, MJT, Chris.. I appreciate it. I especially appreciate those of you who have taken wallpaper off your own walls (and ceilings - OMG! :wtf: )

Still weighing my options. I may try removal in the hallway first to see how it goes/utilize it as a test area.

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Corsetière
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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by Corsetière »

I had to get it all done in about a months time too, so I found it helpful to call my late nights "home reno discos" and blasted electronic dance music and made some cocktails to fool myself into thinking I was having fun. Ha ha! Hey, whatever works!

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Re: Rehabbing Plaster Walls with Painted Wallpaper

Post by ZoraQ »

The key is getting the moisture from what ever technique you are using between the paper and the plaster. You may have to try several techniques to find the one that works best for your situation. The paint on top of the wallpaper adds a lever of difficulty of getting the moisture to that critical layer. A lot of good suggestion on posted on getting through the paint and paper. Be careful to not get too aggressive or you may end up scoring the plaster and end up with some patching working after the wallpaper is gone. Best of luck

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