how can you make woodchip wallpaper look nice?

[juicychops]

ive recently moved into a rented house

the whole place is papered in woodchip. im assuming because the walls are so crap underneith. I don't have the money to test this theory as i can't get it re-sorted out if it IS crap underneith, so the woodchip will stay

how can i make it look nice though? i hate woodchip

do certain colours/types of paint etc improve the look?

You can't make it look nice. It is awful stuff. Sorry, but it's true.
You might not have bad walls underneath. Try peeling a little bit off in an area that you won't notice- behind a big pice of furniture and see waht the walls are like.
Our house is papered in woodchip and blown vinyl and the walls are lovely and smooth underneath. It is comimg off in every room.

The only way of making it look nice is by removing it. And it's a bastard to remove - the memories of standing on a ladder with a steamer in one hand and a scraper thing in the other, with boiling hot bits of paper and woodchip in my eye, are still painfully fresh.

It doesn't mean the walls are crap though - some of ours were, and needed replastering, while others were fine. Lining paper covers a lot of sins, though.

I don't think anything can make it better.
If there is no way you can remove it, neutral 'biscuity' clours are best imo.

Silk paint makes it look worse though.
As does yellow!

*colours

I think using woodchip paper should be a criminal offence. It's horrible stuff and the only way to improve it is to remove it but you're right to not go there in a rented house. You might be lucky and get it all off but there's a good chance it'll bring plaster with it. I would go for a matt paint in a dull, neutral colour.

I've finally got round to stripping the woodchip in the one remaining room with it in after 9 years. Ages ago a decorator stripped it all off the dining room Walls in a couple of hours after I had spent 5 hours doing a tiny patch. He said the secret was a scraper with razor sharp blade on a long pole, which takes off the hard top layer. The bit underneath then hopefully comes off with a bit of warm water.

Found one of these scrapers in Homebase recently and it is fab, all the woodchip gone very very quickly. We might have been very lucky though with the plaster remaining intact.

I loathe woodchip too, adn in our old flat it was keeping the walls up

I woudl go WHITE with lots of funky art to divert the eye

cool thanks for your ideas. ive had a look at all the walls and had a few taps here and there. It sounds like there is some loose plaster in quite a lot of places and i think i will be risking spending a lot of money re plastering if i take it off. and if i start taking it off i have to continue to take it all off!

think il go for some neutral colours as suggested. at the moment it is all glossed over in every room which is awful as the light bounces off the walls and exagurates the woody bits. its terrible. what makes people do it!!

"how can you make woodchip wallpaper look nice?"

Spray it with plenty of water, with a drop of Fairy in it, and scrape it off. It will look at its best stuffed into binbags.

Saw this and thought you poor sod, having stripped a whole house myself, it is indeed a complete bastard to get rid of and blown vinyl, both scream"hiding something" to me. Get rid of it when you can afford to.

www.grahambrown.com/uk/wallpaper/by-brand/wall-doctor
go here they do special wallpaper that covers wood chip