To wallpaper over the cracks - quite literally?

[Violete]

DH and I have bought our first home - it's Victorian, and we are poor!

The surveyor said the lathe and plaster ceilings are coming to the end of their lifespan and will need replacing in ten years. That's fine and we can well believe it - pretty much every room has cracks in the plaster to a greater or lesser degree.

The previous owners wallpapered all over, including two massive hallways - hard to explain the layout but essentially it's like we have two corridors - long as well as tall. They then painted on top of this wallpaper, but the paint job is awful and they didn't even bother the paint the top few inches of the wall!

I am desperate to put some bright and cheerful wallpaper on these corridors. I don't want to pull down the original wallpaper because I know for a fact the plaster behind them will be in a terrible state. And we just don't have the budget at the moment to get a plasterer in - a) we have other priorities for the bit of cash we do have and b) we want to wait until the cost of trades falls a little.

DH thinks we should 'do it properly or not at all,' i.e. live with the depressing walls until we can afford for the whole house to be replastered.

So, AIBU to wallpaper the two hallways, on top of the old wallpaper, and accept in 10 years' time it'll all come down once we've saved up?

I wouldn’t. Not a wise idea as the old wallpaper now has a coat of paint.

Id wall paper over. We were broke when we m

When we moved in. We painted over some too to see us through a few years.

This is an example of what I mean. I don’t think there’s much we can do about the ceilings at the moment except perhaps give them a coat of ‘problem wall’ white paint.

But I am desperate to cover these walls!

We wallpapered over some dodgy plasterwork until we could afford to get it stripped back to brick and redone. That was in 1986.

We painted over the wall paper in our bedroom temporarily ten years ago lol

Sounds like a standard line from surveyor. Unless they are actually sagging they could last another 30 years. As for the walls if they are lime plaster they will do better if you strip them back and let them breathe. Patch over any bad spots or cracks and repaint with breathable paint and/or paper. The lime plaster base layer may not be as bad as you are imagining.

Lime plaster is magic stuff that re-bonds after it cracks, and is often much more stable than it looks. But, and it's a big but, if a lime
ceiling does collapse the mess is beyond imagining.

OP you need to use WallRock lining paper, this stuff is amazing for terrible old walls ect. Get it on right with a fine filler on the joints and you wont even see the joins.

www.screwfix.com/p/erfurt-white-wallrock-fibreliner-wallpaper-1000mm-x-20m/1506P?tc=BB3&ds_kid=92700072652577527&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1243321&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=CjwKCAjw7p6aBhBiEiwA83fGunkvAJLIBABoL_3OSzBJKz0U87xEld6xDLa9o19KOPYBskcCpuVWXBoCKJ4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Wallpaper over it. Otherwise you will still be looking at that in ten years time.

We stripped wood chip wallpaper in the hallway of one house. Took one look at the state of the wall underneath and put fresh wood chip back up.
With a lick of paint in a colour of our choosing it did look a lot better than the state of the old stuff

We have inherited archeological layers of paper and paint in our house.

When we first moved in, all we could afford was to polyfill the holes and paint it trade magnolia (walls) or trade white (ceilings and other random bits). You could hear the plaster crumble behind the walls (1930s original) and watch the bubble go up and down as you rollers it.

10 years later, those walls haven't yet come up on the "next" list, though they will in the next 5 years. They're fine. We don't tend to hang loads of pics or shelves on them though.

Do the cheapest but cleanest / most intelligent tidy job you can on the bits you can't afford to yet do properly. It'll make for a more comfortable existence and positive experience until you can afford to "do it right".

Sometimes you also just need to take a place back to blank canvas and live in it a bit before you make renovation and bold choices.

I would do what you can with the walls - so paper over the old wallpaper or indeed just paint over it in the short term. . The ceilings I would keep more of an eye on because if those come down it is the devil's own job to replace clear up the mess and get fixed. If you do paint over cracks , bubbles etc flat matt is so much more forgiving & if the walls will stand a picture or two - you won't really notice . I speak from experience before could have a proper job by plasterers ( but we did prioritise ceilings )

All best

That was in 1986.

^

😂😂
Do it, op! You have time

Thanks all, I think I will try to do it. DH wants to get a professional in “because it’s such a large wall and it’ll be difficult to match the pattern,” but surely any decorator worth their salt would refuse to paper on top of paper?!

We removed 7 layers of wall paper in our hallway when we redecorated. It was fascinating dating each layer to its era. The shiny bronze foil was a bit much though!

When we got to the final layer we discovered that the wall had a huge hole in it with bricks actually missing ( internal wall)! The plaster was in a terrible state as expected but we've slapped new thick paper up until we can get it re-plastered. That was 20 years ago.

I can relate to this and would have given a different answer a few years ago when I moved in to what I'll give now. I was your DH when we moved in with any similar issue - all must be done properly, we must undo all previous 'errors' as told to us by all the tradesmen we had over to quote and start afresh knowing it was all sound.

We did some of it and left others and bodged/did ourselves other things and at this point I don't think of any of it at all. The house is fine - will I be starting an instagram page and redoing absolutely every inch of it to be photo ready? no. Does it perform the function of a nice home that looks perfectly nice (to me) with some bits that aren't perfect or need smoothing here and there that get noticed by nobody and affect very little? yes. Ultimately I bought a victorian house and now accept that that was par for the course from the start even if I fantasised otherwise.

The quotes we've had for things over the last few years have been ridiculous and not economical and I'd rather put my money elsewhere at this time until that changes. I would just decorate where you can in ways you like and enjoy living in the home. I can't imagine a tradesmen refusing to take your money to put wallpaper up just because the circumstances of the wall don't suggest longevity. Just tell them that's what you'd like done and ask them to quote for it, it's your home!

My DP sanded the walls and then lined it. Don't get me wrong, it does look shit, but better than before. We painted over wallpaper but it's that bloody bumpy textured stuff so you can obviously see it still. It's been 3 and a bit years and we still have nowhere near enough money to get a professional in.

We stripped painted wallpaper off dodgy old plaster and most of the plaster came with it. Huge areas of bare lathe

If you can't afford to have it fixed if this happens I def wouldn't strip off paper

Yes, I think part of DH’s reluctance is that he’s worried I’m saying the wallpaper I put up can do “for now” but in reality it’ll be there for years!

He also thinks if we wallpaper the walls then it’ll make the ceilings look even worse.

I do accept that the ceilings throughout the house are criss-crossed with cracks and rubbish attempts at repairs with filler. They don’t look good. The problem is I don’t even want to think about the cost of replastering five ceilings and two long hallways - LET ALONE the walls as well!💰

I think all we can do at this stage is to paint the ceilings with a thick paint. And then if we do wallpaper anywhere then at least the ceilings will look fresh, if not neat?

Yes I repainted my bedroom as a stopgap in 2001! It's been repainted since but never stripped back. I really don't mind the character of wonky walls in an old house.