How do I fix this wall?

[confusedcrane]

We moved house a while ago, and in the living room one wall had been wallpapered as a feature wall by the owner we purchased from. We were lucky that the wallpaper was an easy peel kind, but we found underneath a layer of blue paint directly over the plaster. We're aware the room had been re-plastered by another previous owner. Sadly the wallpaper took off numerous patches of paint of all sizes, leaving it looking a bit like a giraffe.

My dear dad, who has plenty of experience in painting and decorating our family homes over the years, said he would sort it out so we could be ready to paint it. I thought great! Now DH and I can focus on wrapping up moving our stuff. Dad brought a sander, I gave him a tub of white primer, and we left him to it.

But of course it didn't go smoothly otherwise I wouldn't be posting.

I think age has crept in more with my dad than I wanted to admit, because the wall looks awful. From what I understand, my dad filled in the patches with polyfilla, every single one, sanded the wall, and then primed it. It feels flat to the hand, but when the light fills the room and catches the texture you can see how uneven and patchy it is. It looks ten times worse than it did with the patches and blue paint.

I'll add pictures tomorrow, but I'm worried now this newly plastered wall - it was done maybe 6years ago and the house is from the 50's - was ruined in one afternoon.

How do I even start tackling this? Money is tight so I'm hoping for ideas we can do ourselves.

A matt paint finish may help a little as it's less reflective. White and reflective would catch every fault especially if sin is hitting it.

Or it might need a skim of plaster over the entire wall but that costs money of course.

Could it become a feature wall again with more textured paint or paint effects ttag would disguise the imperfections.

Could you put lining paper up and paint over it?

Some of the walls in our house were like that. We tried doing what your dad has done. It doesn't work, as we learned to our cost. The edges of the painted areas start to come loose and lift, and begin to peel away.

I agree wallpaper with lining paper and then paint the lining paper.

I’d be getting a reskim for that in my house. Repairing damaged paint is really tricky.

Pictures of the wall attached. It's just some small sections, we obviously have moved in so furniture in front of the stretch of wall. But the whole wall is textured like this.

I would pay for a plasterer to reskim the wall to start with a smooth surface. Before the photos I thought you were talking about flashing which can happen when you patch repair a wall. However the photos show it is more than that, there are still massive imperfections in the wall.

Matt paint hides this better than any shiny paint but in the long run you would still be noticing the indents. We renovated our previous house and skimped on things like a plaster reskim instead patching and sanding. We swore to never do that again because every time we looked at the wall it was a bit sad.

Just re-plaster the wall. Or put new wall paper on. You can you plain lining paper and paint it over - not ideal, but perhaps more cost effective

The easiest and quickest fix would be to have it entirely replastered.
it is only one wall and will take very little time for the best results.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

We're not wanting to do wallpaper or lining paper as it's an old house and the walls really need to breathe. Other rooms have been done this way upstairs and it's caused issues or made it harder to identify issues.

I think a skim coat is likely the best solution, frustrating financially but there it is.

Can anyone explain how long the process takes for a plasterer and roughly how much it costs? If it's just a thin coat it's not going to impact things like the depth of the wall too much (thinking of the skirting board, unless they remove it then put it back?)

They might need to do two coats - the second would be finer - and they need to sand inbetween. Some of the cost is due to needing to do multiple visits as they need to allow drying time before recoating

If getting more than one quote make sure they are offering the same quality and you are comparing apples with apples

If you have damp issues, (you have suggested that the walls need to breathe?) Then you will need to get the walls skimmed with lime plaster which is more pricey and more specialist that normal plaster. Worth checking what the current plaster is because if it's already gypsum (modern) then you can just get it skimmed it that. Modern stuff is pink. Anything else, if you break a bit off and it fizzes if you put it into vinegar then it's lime plaster. Skimming a wall would take half a day ( for one coat) but it is very messy so the test if the room will need to be emptied or dust sheeted. Depends where you are but you would probably be looking at £200-300 for modern plaster and maybe £500 for lime if you can find someone.

You might’ve already looked into this, but I was browsing Toolstation for something else when I came across a product called Dalapro, which seems to be made for this kind of situation. Some reviewers are raving about it, others are less impressed - they reckon a £37 tub covers about 12m2.