Remove painted over wall paper or paint over it again?

[Softkitty2]

Basically we are planning to do a lot of cosmetic work in our property.. The lounge and dining room had wall paper and we painted over it when we first moved in (big mistake!) and now I want to redecorate the whole area before new floors get put in.

Should we try and remove the painted over wallpaper and how difficult is it going to be? Or paint over it again?

Hmm, it really depends on the state of the walls.

In our house every time we strip wallpaper half the plaster comes off with it, so we have had to have a lot of replastering done.

If the walls are in good shape though, it should be fairly straightforward with maybe a bit of filling.

If you have the time and budget to do it properly, do it (experience ) If you getting new floors, you may have to take off the skirting board anyway.

Thanks, that's exactly it I'm worried the plaster will come off. Really not looking forward to it at all but needs to be done before new flooring.

I agree, go back to the start and do it from scratch if you have time. Painting over it won't look anywhere near as good.

We were in a rush when we moved in and there was one room with awful shredded wallpaper and no time to replaster. I scraped most of the wallpaper off and we put up fibreglass wallpaper like this: ukdecor.co.uk/offer/decorating/wallpapering/# Then painted it. It actually looks very nice, though IMO not as nice as a freshly plastered and painted wall! V happy with it though.

As long as you haven't gloss painted the wallpaper it should come off ok. Is the house old? Like you say plaster issues if it is.

No not gloss I think I will hire a wallpaper steamer and I have watched a few diy videos. So fingers crossed.

If it needs plastering I will just get it done.

FWIW OP I bought a simple £39 wallpaper steamer 15 years ago and it's still going strong. It's really effective and has been worth every penny. If you've got the time and energy it's definitely worth doing the job properly.

When I say I scraped most of the wallpaper off, I meant using wallpaper stripper obvs