Textured wallpaper - what's the best thing to do?

[Pepperpot99]

Our new-ish house is pretty much covered in drab, textured wallpaper. The colour is inoffensive but I hate it and want to get rid of it.

I don't think it would be easy to repaint it as it isn't smooth. Is it better to put another layer of paper over it, with a view to painting that? would paper stick to the current textured paper?

thanks in advance.

I think it is best to remove it. If the house is new(ish), then hopefully the paper was put up as a style statement rather than to cover crumbling old plasterwork

Sorry my post was misleading - it's new for us as we recently moved in, but the house is old, 1930s. I really don't want to remove the paper as I dread what lies beneath!

Any other ideas?

I can't see how you can paper over it. Possibly the best bet would be to remove it in a small room (or the room which you spend most time in as this would have the greatest benefit) and see how it goes. Doing the whole house would be daunting but one room at a time should be manageable and it might not be hiding any horrors.

I have a '30s house too. In my front room there's washable embossed vinyl wallpaper, I've put four layers of paint on it but the pattern still shows through when the sun shines on it!
The hall had woodchip on it, I've just stripped it off and yes there are holes in the plaster. But even with lots of scoring it was hard to get a key in, and my scraper went over the top and took the woodchips off, so I did experiment with my sander and you can sand it back and have a smoother surface, but it may tear in places.
My kitchen was covered in artex, I took that back with an electric scraper, gave it a quick sand down and painted it with masonry paint. Obviously not a professional smooth finish but so much better than before!

Our house we have just bought is covered top to toe in white textured wallpaper. Yes even the ceiling s. We've just removed the living room one downstairs and we're pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Although to paint we'd need to replaster. So we've just bought some nicer paper to go on for now. Haa. I feel your pain. It's a fucker to remove!

You need to strip it, I really don't think there's an alternative. But be prepared for walls to be in a bad state and the paper was put up to conceal cracks etc. A 1930s house will likely still have lath and plaster which will be starting to degrade to a greater or lesser extent. Your choice once the current paper is off will be to line it (best case scenario, you can get some really good lining papers that covers a multitude). In most cases you should be able to do this with a 30s house I think, build quality was often pretty good. But if it's in a really bad state (often with Victorian houses, plaster has separated from the lath or is just crumbling) you'll need to take the lath off, board it, then re-plaster (really messy, expensive). You could perhaps tell if it's this bad before removing the paper - visually (any bowed out areas?) or by pressing on it and seeing if the walls sort of give a bit, can you push the walls in in places..?
And if you can't face/afford any of the above, just paint over it for now until you can!

Burn it.
The only answer is to burn the house down and start from scratch.
Woodchip is a bitch to get off.

Remove it! Try one wall and see what you find underneath. It might not be as bad as you think (and it is better to know if there are any damp problems etc).

you are going to have to remove it one day. The longer you leave it the worse it will get. If you can strip it before you move it, that will be best as you can deal with the mess. Second best is after you move in but before you unpack your boxes. Bad time after you have filled the house with stuff and have carpets and curtains. Worst of all is after you have done some decorating which will all be wasted.

Book a week in a Travelodge.

There is a difference between textured embossed paper and wood chip. We found that the textured wallpaper was relatively easy to remove (also in a 19 30s house) but the wood chip (especially on the ceilings) was a nightmare to remove.

I don't think we could have papered or painted over it, it wouldn't have given a good finish.

Upstairs, we lined the walls before painting and the finish is good. Downstairs (and hall, stairs etc) we had skimmed for a perfect finish.

I feel your pain OP - our 1850s house that was extended in the 1920s and purchased by us in 2014, is literally and liberally smothered in textured and woodchip wallpaper......twelve rooms plus two hallways over three storeys, including all ceilings....grrrr! The fuckers even papered the undersides of shelves inside original built in period cupboards with the stuff - why?

We intend to remove it all in time, but for now have stripped one small room in the 1920s extension that was thankfully actually not too bad beneath the surface.

Where we have experimented removing the stuff in other rooms, it has produced mixed results - some old (lime) plaster has crumbled and will need repair/re skimming, whereas other areas will be ok once sanded back. Some areas - the extensive landings in particular - will be lined before painting.

In one larger room we have painted over the textured stuff as a temporary measure, but despite opting for a deep colour it's still noticeable.

We DIY most jobs so this is one for the long haul and will require plenty of , and chocolate!

30s house, every room had embossed paper which had been painted over by the previous owners whio'd only been there for 2 yes.

In one room we painted over the wallpaper as we didn't mind, in fact rather liked, the very 50s embossed pattern. That said it was the room we were planning to shelve so painted it in a red silk which can be glimpsed between the books.

For the other rooms we have gradually removed the paper. On most cases the walls have been okay-ish (could have slimmed if money were no object) but in our bedroom the plaster had blown in a full places so we needed one wall knocked back to the brick, boarded and plastered and the rest of the room we had skimmed.

We've been here almost 10 years and are finally tackling the hall this autumn after doing everywhere else - patchily painted magnolia over embossed brown and cream floral paper.

the paint on top makes the stripping difficult because it prevents water soaking in. Steamers are liable to blow the plaster. My preference is to score it, and mist it repeatedly with a garden sprayer. By the time you have worked you way all round the room it is time to start again at the beginning. You might have to start spraying it the day before you intend to strip.

Embossed papers and woodchip, you can use a metal paint scraper to take the tops off the pattern, and the scabs off the woodchip.

When you strip it, start at the top, and let the spray trickle downwards behind the paper.

You must turn off all electrical circuits that enter the room, and the circuit for the lights in the room below at least.

Thanks everyone. I feel a very bloody expensive visit to mybuilder.com approaching....

Hi,
We were in the same position as you last week! Our place is a 1930's mansion style apartment which was covered in ugly wallpaper. We wanted some electrics rerouted and the builder said that we'd have to get the wallpaper down because it would be really obvious where they would have to mess up the paper to move electrics. They quoted £1500 just for wallpaper removal which we thought was ridiculous!

We used a scraper to get the edge of the paper and tried to remove as much as we could that way and then used a steamer. The steamer worked really well but we had a few people helping who weren't as thorough as they could be and left small bit on the wall. Now we're going over all the walls with soapy water to get rid of the paper left over. We have lime plaster and small bits came away with the wallpaper so we've also been filling in the holes.

The plan now is to fill all the holes then use Zinsser Gardz to prevent any leftover glue from getting activated and ruining the paint in the future and then paint. I'm also tempted by the Polyfilla smoothing compound, we're going to try it on the ceiling because it's going to be too hard to try to fill all the small holes there.

Also we haven't tackled the 2nd bedroom but I was going to try some stiff by a company called Wallwik (i think) which is a something you soak in their solution and put on top of the wallpaper for 20min and it's supposed to peel off the paper easily...I'm a bit sceptical but fingers crossed!