Woodchip Wallpaper! Gah!

[HonoriaGlossop]

I'm just wondering whether there is a magic, easy answer to my woodchip nightmares the whole of the upstairs of our house is woodchipped....do I really really have to strip it, is there no alternative? Can I get someone to plaster over it or is that just stupid?

This is an old house i really think that all of the plaster currently under the woodchip will just fall off if I start to strip it....it's so weak you can put your finger through it in places.....I really don't want to go there.....

anyone?

my old house was similar, must admit as we were broke we just painted the walls

We moved to a brand new smooth plastered house a couple of years ago

sorry thats so not helpfull but at least it bumped your query !

sorry, it needs removing and then the walls will probably be a mess so it'll need skimmed. DO NOT attempt to skim over it - it will all fall off. your only alternative is to keep it..........
may God have mercy on your soul!

Deepest sympathies...agree though..it HAS TO GO....and skimming will cost about £250 per room???

Are you a Glossop gal really???

I had woodchip in my ds room when i moved in we stripped it but it took the plaster off too, I have it in my hall but i just painted over it as i couldn't bear the thought of all the plaster falling off. i painted it really light so in the hope you don't notice it. It's not my house so i couldn't afford to replaster it etc.

strip it and have wall skimmed

tis a bitch of a job though - score it well and use spray wallpaper stripper from B&Q (buy concentrate and dilute in sprry bottle)

no easy answer

we have the same here and if you are in the SE/London, the plastering will probably cost you a fortune!

we have only done one room so far - the rest has to wait!

some people wallpaper over it again (you put down very thick lining paper first or you can cover it in a thick, coating stuff you can get now - cannot remember the name) - I think it depends what your future plans for the house are

Plastering over would cost a fortune and is always messy. If you do strip, hire/buy a steam stripper thing - they do speed it up. The problem with woodchip is that you always seem to have 2 layers to remove - the outer painted one and a browner, softer layer underneath - at least with a steamer the latter just peels away, and reduces the chance of the plaster coming with it. Our entire house was magnolia woodchip when we bought it - my heart goes out to you. It's the devil's wallpaper .

But don't use the steamer to strip a ceiling - what happens is that very hot condensing steam mixed with bits of hot woodchip drips into your eyes, your hair, down your arms and up your sleeves - the whole experience has left a lasting impression on me

Wait until woodchip comes back into fashion and stun everyone with your fashion foresightedness by having house already woodchipped???

To make up for my somewhat insensitive joke, I googled woodchip wallpaper+removals and came up with quite a lot of sites with advice so you may want to try that...also found this on the C4 website:

It?s only wallpaper right? Well?If you?re lucky the original decorator will have done a sloppy job and the paper will peel off relatively easily. If the original decorator was a pro or if the woodchip has bonded with previous generations of painted wallpaper underneath then it can be real nightmare to remove.
Wallpaper stripper may be effective in areas where adhesion is bad, but the texture of the paper makes clean removal difficult without a lot of elbow grease.
OR: You can rent a professional wallpaper stripper and perforator. Available from most tool hire companies this slightly scary steamer and the medieval looking perforator that comes with it will turn a room into a sauna and liquidise your plaster if you leave it on too long, but can be very effective. First simply run the perforator up and down the wallpaper to pierce the surface enough for the steam to get inside, then rest the steam head against the area to be stripped. After a short time the woodchip can be scraped or peeled away with relative ease.

TOP TIP: as well as a long sleeved shirt, goggles and face-mask, wear the type of oven gloves actually shaped like a glove. The boiling hot steam can be difficult to control, the steam head WILL dribble on you when you least expect it, and scraping often puts your hand closer to the scalding steam than you would prefer.

Average cost of wallstripper plus perforator hire = £24.00 for the weekend.

Hope that helps?

or do what we did whcih was to slap loads and loads of thick gloopy paint over it and pretend it's just textured

Thanks for that guys.

and thanks for your trouble Nikki I will look into the stripping idea....gulp.

we bought a wall paper stripper...cheaper than hiring...i think ours was £25 from homebase.

Have not tackled my woodchip room yet...not looking foraward to it either!!

You can buy textured wallpaper in more trendy patterns that is thick enough to cover woodchip. In fact it's called something like "room doctor" and specifically says it covers woodchip. They have loads of patterns at my local homebase! Hope that helps!

even with a wallpaper stripper, it is bloody hard work I'm afraid to say - I've stripped a few rooms and my goodness, you'll discover muscles in your shoulders you never knew you had.

If you have any sort of money whatsoever, I'd pay someone else to do all the hard labour!

We used aproduct designed to do this and it was amazing. Can't remember the name and it wasn't cheap but it really owrked.
Think we found it through googling woodchip removal. was americxan product.

Fairy liquid is amazing make it lots of the liquid and not goo much water it glided of my wall soak it in brilliant I did my three rooms in no time xx