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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wish that woodchip paper painted the colour of Ambrosia Rice would suddenly come back into fashion?

66 replies

FlamedToACrisp · 12/07/2019 22:19

I mean, it's 'retro chic', right?

Lucky me for inheriting a share of a 1970s house. I'm drenched in sweat, covered in little chips of wood and I already have blisters, and I haven't started the stairwell yet.

OP posts:
Mrstwiddle · 13/07/2019 00:03

Would definitely recommend leaving the artex ceilings alone if they’re pre mid 1980s, asbestos is a possibility.

LaLaLamp · 13/07/2019 00:18

I have it in my kitchen. Hideous stuff.

Bearfrills · 13/07/2019 00:21

Bearfrills Jr is available for hire but be warned, he will also strip other non-woodchip walls if left to his own devices his sister's room, the hallway, the dining room...

Crafting1Queen · 13/07/2019 00:36

OMG, the pain of getting a sliver of woodchip caught under/jagging under your fingernail ……. the more coats of paint it's had, the stronger - more dagger like it is, was that sore I thought I was going to pass out and was actually sick. I run for the hills now if anyone asks me to help them strip it lol.

justsomebodyox · 13/07/2019 00:38

My house that I've lived in a year now has most rooms covered in wood chip wallpaper, it took me and DP months to remove it from the one bedroom using, water, scrapers, a wallpaper steamer, attempting to sand it, a few emotional breakdowns and we nearly gave up! The next bedroom we are decorating we have decided to get a plasterer to just plaster over it because it's just far too time consuming to remove! We would have finished the entire house decorating by now if it weren't for the bloody wood chip paper!!

fairislecable · 13/07/2019 07:25

I once had to strip a room which had anaglypta wallpaper painted over with several coats of dark brown gloss.

Ending up with the careful use of a blow torch and a bucket of water!

transformandriseup · 13/07/2019 07:49

We have an entire woodchip decorated house which we have inherited with each room a different colour. In fact the bathroom is the exact colour OP mentioned, with a green carpet (no tiles at all)!!!

Not a fan.

raspberrypancakes · 13/07/2019 07:55

We had woodchip in our bathroom!! Thankfully due to the humidity it came off easily, although now you can see why they wallpapered the bathroom! Also they painted the woodchip a pale brown?!

TheCrowFromBelow · 13/07/2019 08:02

I have magnolia anaglypta and Artex bet you’re all wel jel

We are slowly detexturing the house room by room - just the hall and stairs left.

The textured rose patterned wallpaper on the sitting room ceiling was our favourite- totally sucked the light out of the room.

greathat · 13/07/2019 08:19

We had this, luckily the house had damp issues so we could remove it quite easily by removing the plaster...

JeSuisPrest · 13/07/2019 08:29

After only doing one wall in a box room, I got a plasterer in to reboard and skim the whole lot including the ceiling. At the rate I was going wood chip would have come back into fashion by the time I'd finished.

whoami24601 · 13/07/2019 08:37

Get a wallpaper steamer and it just peels off!

LadyRannaldini · 13/07/2019 12:48

Do you have a steamer? Slash the wood chip with a sharp knife, steam it then scrub washing up liquid into all the slashes. Leave it for an hour or so, it comes off quite easily, you may need another application of steam. You'll have a very sticky mess but it does work, we wwht through three bottles of washing up liquid doing one room!

Singlebutmarried · 13/07/2019 14:21

Polystyrene ceiling tiles. Held on by years of nicotine and on a fibre board ceiling. Throw in some asbestos tiles too and you have our house.

And the pine kitchen. Not pine. It was white (sponsored by nicotine)

Purplejay · 13/07/2019 14:40

During the 70s growing up the wood chip was painted brilliant white but then gradually turned to ambrosia and beyond from the fag smoke!

Flavabobble · 13/07/2019 16:25

I’ve lived in my house for almost 27 years. Even now there’s still woodchip on the hall, stairs & landing ceilings. (And probably always will be)
When stripping the bathroom walls a few years back, discovered just one wall had woodchip underneath a blown vinyl paper, started stripping it off - absolutely impossible to remove...ending up papering back over it.

BinkySodPlop · 13/07/2019 17:06

I used to pick mine when I was a kid in the 70s. My parents had lovingly put it up all over the place.... I could strip a wall quite easily in those days. Does anyone still find the bathroom tiles that had a pattern on which looked like a duck? They seemed to come in avocado, pink, pale blue and beige and all my friend's houses had them....

TheHandsOfNeilBuchanan · 13/07/2019 17:09

Our house was smothered in it (and artex) use a spiky roller to pierce it then a steamer, it will come off in huge sheets with a scraper

SignedUpJust4This · 13/07/2019 17:10

Do you live in my house OP? Exactly same. Trying to fix up one room at a time but it's taking forever and I have a dreadful feeling we will finally finish and it will be the height of fashion again.

PookieDo · 13/07/2019 17:14

We had a house like this, in the end we decided not to worry about trying to preserve the plaster and just hacked it off with a lot of instruments and had it all plastered. Disgusting polystyrene tiles were so nicotine stained they were all sticky and the green bathroom suite made me feel sick

Apolloanddaphne · 13/07/2019 17:16

Yes to those duck tiles! My DM used to get upset if she was somewhere that had put them on 'upside down'. It made her sad to see all the little ducks on their heads.

BarbariansMum · 13/07/2019 17:20

Top tip. Never get a small child to help you strip off horrible old wallpaper if you are planning to replace it with beautiful new wallpaper. Children have no discernment.

FreezerBird · 13/07/2019 17:22

Our first house there was anaglypta, but the previous owners hadn't painted over it and were heavy smokers so the 'embossed' bits just functioned as nicotine sponges. It was vile.

Same house, the bathroom suite was pink, with a black loo seat, with dark green carpet which went up the side of the bath, half the walls tiled in a brown pattern, half in very, very shiny black tiles, which made it almost mirrored.

madcatladyforever · 13/07/2019 17:33

I like woodchip but artex can do one - yuck. I will not buy a house that has artex anywhere.