Bad walls

[Lougle]

When we moved in and stripped wallpaper, the plaster fell off the wall. The majority of the walls were replastered, except the hall. The hall was wallpapered. Now we want to redecorate but I'm feeling a bit scared to try and strip the paper. Any tips?

Secondly, if we wanted to paint the walls but they had flakey patchy paint on them underneath the wallpaper, how would we prepare them?

I don't think we can paint over the wallpaper or cover with lining paper because it has an indented pattern.

I’d probably strip the wallpaper and have it replastered like you did with the other rooms.
Otherwise painting over wallpaper which you said you can’t do.

I can't afford to replaster, unfortunately.

How much plaster fell off the wall? Just the top bit? Big chunks or lots of little bits? Is the plaster blown? Because if so, you could do plaster skim yourselves and rub down to smooth. I would rub off all loose paint, bits of plaster, etc, and then start repairing with plaster skim, filler for deeper holes with skim on top, etc. Then rub smooth. Repeat if needed. Use the thinnest amount of skim possible and smooth as flat as possible to reduce sanding effort later.

You can also use a base coat paint to paint over once you’ve prepared the walls to see how bad they look. They may well not look that bad with the base coat on - it smooths out minor imperfections and creates a better base for emulsion.

I have just done this in a room from which I had to remove three layers of wallpaper, though only one bit had large bits of plaster coming off, so I know something of what I speak….

That's encouraging @MacaroniCheeseCat. When we moved in, large parts of plaster came off the walls in the lounge, to the extent that we could see bare brick. The council were not initially helpful, saying that 'internal decoration was the tenant's responsibility'. I pointed out that to decorate, there needed to be a wall surface.

The contractors then came out, knocked all the walls and decided that parts of the lounge, dining room and upstairs bedrooms needed replastering, but the hall was ok.

I'm just a bit wary of finding that the hall isn't so good after all! But your plan sounds good.