Will wallpaper hide or highlight the fact that walls need replastering?

[FishCalledWonder]

Live in a tiny victorian terraced house that doesn't contain a single right-angle! Living room walls are rough but can't afford replastering at the moment. Covered in centuries of different paint colour over torn lining paper.

If i wallpaper (possibly with this ) will it hide how bad the walls are? What about the wonky line where the wall meets the ceiling?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

I read once that is you pur lining paper on horizontally and then the wallpaper on the normal way it completely covers up plastering imperfections. I have no idea whether it's true.

We did a similar thing in our hall, stairs and landing. We used thick lining paper but when the light hits the wall it looks as bad as a cellulite thigh. I've now bought a big picture to lure the eye. We scraped and scraped the bare plaster downstairs and got a better finish but couldn't face dangling over the stairs. I put two layers of wallpaper downstairs but you can see the seams of the base layer. Your chosen paper is very expensive for cellulite thighs. Maybe try a layer of lining paper first then paper over but don't stagger the seams as I did. If you could stretch to plastering it looks so slick painted.

I'd love to plaster but DH is adamant that we can't just do living room walls as it would highlight fact that ceiling needs doing, all other rooms need doing etc. By far the most obviously awful wall is the back wall of the living room. The natural light hits it and it doesn't have furniture against it. Thinking of just wallpapering that wall and assumed more expensive paper would be thicker. Is that nonsense?

We have just decorated 2 of our bedrooms which we couldn't afford to plaster. I would say though that the walls underneath were "good". We got everything off (you say there is torn lining paper - you need to get that off so you are left with essentially the bare plaster), sanded them down, my H filled any holes etc so they were pretty smooth. Not a newly plastered finish obviously but good.

We then lined the walls with 1400 lining paper which is quite thick. Most people don't recommend any thicker than that (eg 1800) as its quite difficult to work with. We lined horizontally. Left for a couple of weeks to make sure it had settled. Then wallpapered over that (vertically), used a Prestigious paper which was quite thick again, and have got a good finish. Certainly in the bedrooms it is more than good enough. One of the papers has a metallic sheen to it (is nicer than it sounds!) and even with different light on it, the finish is still very good having said that it nearly caused a divorce.

I think that paper is lovely - and the wonky join between the ceiling and walls shouldn't be too noticeable with that paper. Bear in mind however that its quite a vertical pattern, so you'd need to be careful at the side edges of each wall (e.g. the "trunk" might end up looking wonky is the wall is wonky). I'd get a sample of the paper first - to make sure it is also quite thick.

My walls also needed replastering, and wallpaper did an ok job of hiding it, but we were really careful to strip, scrape out cracks/holes, fill, sand, fill, sand again before we papered. I actually painted one of our worst walls and although it had taken me ages to do the scraping, filling and sanding, it looked brilliant with a matt paint on.

With ceilings, I would recommend a bit of scraping and sanding and filling and then a good flexible ceiling paint before papering the walls. Wickes ceiling paint did a really good job at hiding one of our dodgy ceilings.

avoid direct lighting on bumpy walls too - as this amplifies any problems !

Have you considered using a white analeptic wallpaper ? they are sculptured
blown patterned .B &Q do quite a range. You Emulsion them after hanging . they hide up quite bad defects in plaster work

I found that my piano looks very good in front of one bad area, and a cabinet looks just right in front of the other. Very convenient.

Ha! The front door opens straight into the living room so unfortunately can't hide the wall! It does have a very large picture on it!

Lots to think about. Thanks.

in dd's room the walls are dreadful, when it was our room I papered, small pattern ...sort of paisley/floral sprig, off white over a deep cream...it looked horrid.

when we stripped the walls when she moved in I did think I would reline the walls but in the end I thought "fuckitt" and thought I'd save my effort and PBW the lot....so we got a job lot of flat white emulsion and it looks far better than the paper did, and better than the spare room which was ds1's, but that is paint over lining paper. ...but that is a silk finish

to sum up...def go matt finish, and line or not as you see fit

I stripped a wall back and then used a good quality lining paper from John Lewis. It was fine. I couldn't afford a plasterer either.

We used Super Fresco Easy paste the wall stuff, which covered up a wonky wall with hideous textured wallpaper on it. Worked a treat and is way cheaper than the paper you linked to. They have lots of different patterns.

This one is close to your first one and is the one we currently have a sample of and will be using in the bedroom.

I would hate to spend time and money decorating onto bad plaster. It won't look very good, and it will all be wasted when you do replaster (which can be rather dirty).

You can probably have it skimmed or replastered for a few hundred pounds per room. I'd do that, even if you can only afford to do one room, then put a bit of effort into decorating it nicely, and do the rest as and when you can afford it. Hack off any live plaster or big cracks. A good time to do it is when you are rewiring.

I wouldn't spend any money on carpets if I was planning to replaster.

We have dodgy plaster all over, definitely worth getting done properly, esp if you are not open plan and can do one room at a time. Have found new plaster doesn't show ceiling up too much. Not ideal, but not awful.

do the ceilings first.

Ok, thanks. Time to have another look at the budget I think!

If you do the ceiling (first) you might have such a neck ache that your neck brace prevents you from reaching down to your wallet . Please wallpapering a ceiling ? I would sooner be in a car crash lol

I meant, have the ceiling plastered first. It will probably just need painting afterwards.

I was joking , I like a joke . I laugh a lot one life try to enjoy

Here today gone tomorrow 'and after the greedy relatives have scoffed my life's hard graft they may remember I liked a laugh .