Thread: Painting over wallpaper

Originally Posted by tims

We are currectly preparing the walls in our spare bedroom to paint. The walls are covered with old non-vinyl wall paper that seems to be stuck fairly well to plaster.

We went into our local hardware for some info and they suggested lightly washing the wallpaper, letting it dry and then painting the wallpaper in oil based undercoat (which we bought) and then follow with the top coat. Has anyone tried this approach with any success or suggest some other tips for painting over wallpaper?

cheers

Tim

Tip # 1: Don't do it if you can help it.

Tip # 2: Failing that, the advice received was pretty good. Washing is to remove grease, etc. TSP is a good wash or anything recommended to serve as both a wash and an agent to dull the finish of the paper. Check with your paint dealer. Oil-based undercoat will not typically loosen the paste, so is better than acrylic latex, which is water-based and will often cause the wallpaper to let go.

Tip # 3: See Tip # 1.

HI
In Aus ther call the stuff ESP. It will do what you want however, HB is on the money with tip 1

Have you tried steaming it first to loosen it?

Don't try to remove the wallpaper, if you do you'll end up damaging too much of the gypsum on the wall. Me and my mate actually did a job last week for a painter, that is very similar to your situation. He had to paint over 15 year old wallpaper that was stuck on old plaster sheet walls. The paper was look'n pretty battered, lots of scars and rips at the seams. This is what we did;

1) removed all the loose paper and trimmed what ever was loose around the flaws and the seams, using wallpaper glue to paste down anything we couldn't pull off. Wet sponge to wipe of any excess glue.

2)Primed the wall with one coat fast drying shellac base primer (zinsser's b-i-n worked good for us) and let dry for 45.

3)Mixed up some CSR Gyprock basecoat 45 and applied a very thin coat on the seams and scars and flaws and let dry.

4)After the basecoat has set, we scrap off any excess plaster and then applied a thin but large (10-12inch joint knife) area of Easy-Finish topping (gyprock topcoat) to hide the flaws and the unevenness near the seams, using a 12 inch joint knife to test the evenness (sit the blade on a right angle to the wall and check for any gaps and lines
between the wall and the blade).

5)Let that dry for a day or two, sand the area that has been patched and check for evenness before it's ready for painting

We did a good job hiding all the ripped up and uneven flaws on the old paper. The painter used a eggshell finish washable paint like dulux wash and ware, but if you were going glossy finish, you should seal the surface with a pva primer.I'm no expert on paint, you should ask your local paint shop on what's a good stuff to use, because you want the best paint and sealer to be sitting on that wallpaper. I hope that helps.

Hi Tim

have done this a few times. it work better with textured paper

use no more gap to fill any gaps or joins in paper, i used acrylic undercoat

and acrylic top coat, bingo a wall with new colour

right having said that, the walls in question which were wallpapered where wallpapered to hide walls which were half ply half plastar, so removing wallpaper was not really an option. So as long as wallpaper has one bubbles or rips or other problem you can paint over it but it will never look as good as a plastsar wall unless to do as Zac a Tac suggested. other idea are use textured roller

Good Luck and beside after a few glasses of red it will look great

Don

Originally Posted by L R P

HI
In Aus ther call the stuff ESP. It will do what you want however, HB is on the money with tip 1

It is actually called "Sugar Soap".

Hi.
New to all of this!!
We just bought a '62 brick veneer home and all but 2 rooms have wallpaper. We WILL take it off walls in bathroom and loo but the rest is in such good condtition we were going to paint over it.
So have I got this right. Sugar soap it, spak fill joins etc, use an acrylic based undercoat, paint with a textured roller (sorry but how is this different from a normal roller?) and have a couple of cheeky reds!
Would we need to lightly sand the paper before using gap filler or undercoat?
What are the chances of the paper lifting once painted?
I'm of the mind that if it hasn't budged yet, it very well may never.
Any further suggestions would be great.
Cheers

I moved into my joint about 2 years ago and the previous owners painted over the wallpaper in the toilet and it clearly noticeable. I've cut a large hole in the back wall to install a new toilet (move copper etc) and will have to redo a bit of plaster.

I was thinking sanding all the walls and then repainting.
Your thoughts?<o></o>

Originally Posted by honey_bee

paint with a textured roller (sorry but how is this different from a normal roller?)

Rollers come with different pile(?) sizes. A textured roller just means it has a bigger pile and therefore leaves a more 'dimpled' (textured) finish... good for when it's just too much work to prep a perfect surface for painting. Also there is a "texture coat" roller used specifically for applying texture paints which has small loops rather than the wooly pile or a regular roller.

Someone here who is actually a painter could probably give a better description than this...

Since posting my query about painting wallpaper, it has been strongly suggested to make the effort to remove the paper first. The best result can only come from the best prep.
Makes sense to me. I would hate to go to all the effort of painting and then have it end up soggy and lumpy!!
Do a thread search to find the other discussion. 17th March it started.