Dreaded Wood Chip Wallpaper in EVERY room in our new home to be!!-PLEASE HELP RE COVERING/REMOVING!!🙈

[SingleMummyof4]

Hi. I'm moving into a rental property that used to be RAF houses built around the 1950's and has got the dreaded Wood chip wallpaper in every single room😭 It's been painted over. I don't like old fashioned houses at the best of times but with the added Wood chip I can't cope lol🤣 Is there a simple way to remove it or to cover It?? It's a rental as I said So I don't want to be paying out crazy amounts of my own money completely renovating someone else's property but they won't do it. They've basically said I can do want I want in there but at my cost which is kind of fair enough even though they've admitted it needs completely redecorating but I don't want to push my luck as I'm lucky they will rent to me with being on Housing Benefit as no one else will take us. Just wondering if anyone knows how to easily remove it or if it can be covered in someway?? It would show through wallpaper wouldn't It?! I need to do it the cheapest & easiest way possible but I may need to pay someone to do it for me as I can't do it. What sort of cost should I look at paying a decorator just so I have a rough idea. If I do go ahead and remove it what will likely be underneath?? Plaster?? I don't want to start taking it off and it then turns out I will need to re plaster the whole house!!! Thanks and hope someone can help. Why oh why was Wood chip wallpaper even invented??!! 🙈😭

Hello you sound just like me a few years ago! We bought a whole house covered in wood chip internally and for us, the best solution was simply to have every wall skimmed. It was fixed so firmly that trying to remove it would have caused untold damage as it was a period country cottage, but I know friends who have opted for this option in more modern houses. Good luck!

In our 80's house we had woodchip everywhere. It's horrible, we bought a wallpaper steamer from argos which basically steams it off but it's a nightmare, it's all wet, sticky and gluey. The woodchip are pieces of wood which get under your fingernails. There were a few cracks in the plaster underneath but nothing I couldn't fix. If I can afford it I would have the whole lot skimmed - same with the artex ceiling that still needs doing!

We bought a house that was entirely woodchipped with polystyrene tiles on the ceilings.

Sometimes it's ok. We used to run a scraper over it to take off enough chips to let the steam penetrate under the paint, and removed carefully with a steam stripper. If the plaster was looking fragile we'd really limit the steam and just use water. We got away with only replastering 1 wall (of the whole house), a couple of large patch repairs and using thick lining paper in a couple of rooms. The lining paper is a bodge really to achieve a flatter finish on borderline walls without the expense of replastering. However if you strip the woodchip off, you are running the risk that the plaster gets damaged and then you'd need to replaster... which I wouldn't want the expense of for a rented house. But the tolerance of how bad plaster needs to be to need redoing is very much in the eye of the beholder.

There really is no way of telling, until you start, how easy it'll be or how the plaster will fare. But I emphasise, sonetimes it's fine.

One option is you go back to the landlord and ask if they'd cover the cost of replastering any rooms that are badly damaged by stripping. They'll probably say no but you've nothing to lose. It's possible they'll just be pleased you're doing the work. I think you just need to protect yourself from being held responsible for damaging the walls when you strip them, and being expected to make them good (ie replastering) at your own expense.

It can be removed it just takes ages to do it. It breaks down into a slimy mess when damp and it takes ages to get off as it doesn't usually come off in strips unlike other papers. Only plus side could be that since it must have been painted so many times over the last 60 years that it may be easier to strip off some sections which are bonded by the paint.