Flaky paint/ layers of old stuff - how best to prepare for new coat of paint?

[Whenisitmysleepytime]

We've stripped the wallpaper from our room ad underneath is a mixture of flaky paint (which can be scraped away), weird rubbery/ stretchy paint and layers of paint that are well stuck down but are not level with the patches of bare plaster.

What do we do?

The room is big so sanding would take an eternity and so far is not really helping.
Skimming is not an attractive option either because of dust and mess (we can't move the furniture out as no space to put it)
Is something like polycell base coat a good idea?

Any ideas? TIA :)

Is your house old? If so, the flaky paint sounds like it might be lime-based. New paint won't stick to that, so you need to get it off. But it is water-soluble, so I used a scouring sponge in water.

Did you steam strip your wallpaper? If so, did the rubbery-stretchy paint soften when it had the heat on it? We've got some that did, and that's how I'm planning to get that off.

(What you haven't got which we did was thin sheets of lead behind the wallpaper!)

Once you've got everything off that is going to come off, I've just used fine surface filler, mixed quite thin and applied with a vinyl wallpaper smoothing tool, then sanded.

Good luck!

House is 1950s ex-council property so doubt it's lime plaster! :)

Didn't use a steam stripper so no idea what it'd do. Would a hair dryer work? We don't have a steam stripper.

I really don't like the idea of sanding everything.

Should have added are there any short cuts I could use?

You can get a steam stripper for £20-odd from Homebase. Worth it if you ever consider stripping more paper again. You could try a hairdryer to see if it softens, but I'd be a bit wary if it starts smelling funny - could conceivably be nasties in there.

Sanding everything was a right pain in the rear end. There was a lot of whinging! But it looks great now it's all painted and smooth.

This was the last wallpaper room so no need to strip until we buy again (which will be too long for my liking)

I HATE sanding. :(

Might have to set dh up doing it....

You could put lining paper up if it's not too bad?

We had this in one room and we had hired an industrial wallpaper steam stripper to take the wallpaper off. In the end, the decorator lined the room with lining paper before painting it and it was fine. It all depends how streaky it is as to whether you can get away with using lining paper.