Decorating a severely nicotine/tar stained house

[HomeOfMyOwn]

My new house was obviously previously home to a heavy smoker. The ceilings, walls and woodwork are very badly stained and coated in the vile yellowy substance. The house also stinks of stale smoke (flooring was already stripped out).

What's the best way to clean it off walls and will I need to use any kind of primer or undercoat on walls before painting to fully stop smell and staining coming through new paint? If so what's best?

sugar soap
any wallpaper or lining paper? if so take it off.

Scrub with sugar soap several times over until it smells less , as pp take off any coverings

Wash it all down with sugar soap, then paint with a specialist primer, like Zinsser BIN to seal the stains in before decorating.

There are 2 walls with lining paper, which I was planning to strip. The rest of the house is just painted.

Will sugar soap be enough then?

Really you need to replanted - it gets into the very bones of a house. But assuming that's not an option then Yy to stripping any wall paper and to sugar soap. There are also nicotine blocking undercoat paints available that are pretty effective but the surfaces still need cleaning as much as possible beforehand

Replanted = replastered

Sugar soap.

Start from the top and work your way down though.

Also forgot to ask about doors - some of them have never been painted. They are just those cheap plain brown wood coloured ply type ones - will the smell have absorbed into them to the point they won't be able to be cleaned?

If they are cheap nasty doors just buy new ones! Unless you can't afford to right now on which case just sand them, prime and paint

Just replace the doors. They are cheap enough to get you started. You can always go better doors later on. If they've never been painted I would just bin them off.

We had the same problem - we stripped everything. Stripped the wallpaper and replastered where necessary, then repainted. We replaced all of the internal doors (if they are cheap the effort of stripping them just isn't worth it). All the woodwork was stripped and repainted but again it would have been quicker to replace all the skirting. We removed and scrapped all the fitted furniture. The only thing we kept were the kitchen units - we got cleaners in to do a proper industrial clean.

Snap @gamerchick

Google is always your friend: www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/sweatequity/article/Cleaning-up-house-after-years-of-smoking-4349305.php

Our house was just like that when we first bought it. The stench was so strong that when we viewed it I could only stay inside the house for around ten minutes before my chest started hurting from the smoke. We had to remove all wallpaper, remove all carpet and replaster to get rid of the smell. The house is fine now, however, on a warm day I can still smell a slight smokey smell in one of the downstairs rooms (the room where the previous owner did all her smoking).

I was in exactly this situation once. We stripped out all carpets and soft furnishings before moving in and employed some guys to sugar soap all the surfaces. I was worried about the floorboards taking up the smell of smoke and had them scrubbed too. At the end of that (only took a few days), there was no smell or sign of smoke or nicotine, nothing. It became a beautiful house!

Zinsser BIN link already mentioned is the stuff you need after full sugar soap scrub and dry. It will lock in smells and stains...test an area first in case you need 2 coats. No way will scrubbing alone be enough.

My friend used to wash her paintwork with a mild bleach solution- not sure if it’s a good idea or not!

bleach wont deal with the tar. sugar soap. filthy job.

The doors are an issue since there are 23 internal doors in the house (and it's only a 3 bed!), so even if I buy the cheapest doors it'll come to nearly £500!

I might try cleaning one and hope it works and if not I'll have to find the money somehow - I am very stretched on finances as it is and I was planning on getting a smaller house in a cheaper area but then this came up for auction and was such a perfect location for me and a great size and an incredibly good price (even considering its condition and amount of work needed) so mum helped boost my finances a little - but it means there is very little money to do it up.

The doors are an issue since there are 23 internal doors in the house (and it's only a 3 bed!), so even if I buy the cheapest doors it'll come to nearly £500!

How?! I have a big 4 bed and there's only 17 internal doors including built in wardrobes.

Do you have doors to Narnia?

I remember an episode of Location, Location, where Kirsty Allsop told a pair of buyers that they’d have to strip off all the internal plaster back to bare brickwork, air the house, then replaster from scratch, to get rid of the smoke smell, as it absorbs right into the structure.
My DD is house hunting at present and won’t offer on any smoker’s homes as she can’t afford the cost to put it right.
You need to be thorough in getting rid of it all, OP - that’s a cocktail of 400 cancer causing chemicals saturating your home.

Do you have doors to Narnia?

No but I tallied it in my head whilst DD was distracting me - there is actually 20 (so still over £400 to replace with the cheapest doors) - there are 5 internal storage cupboards, 5 wardrobes, 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and 1 downstairs WC, 3 doors in the lounge, 2 for the kitchen (dinning room has 3 which I think must have been my error in tallying in my head earlier because the doors are 2 into the lounge and 1 into the kitchen).

babdoc we got it for less than 3/4 of it's done up value. I literally couldn't have afforded to live here otherwise (it's a pretty nice area and boarders the very 'naice' bit of town). Plus has been otherwise well maintained with fairly new electrics and central heating. I'm hopeful with some hard work scrubbing and a stain blocker it'll be fine to just redecorate - although I could do with the doors not needing to be replaced straight away.

We've done this and while it is a filthy job the smell and greasy stains can be cleared by washing / scrubbing every inch with sugar soap and sanding all the wood (skirtings, architraves etc and window frames if they are wood) plus new painting and decoration throughout. Air the whole house at every opportunity.

Jif all the light flexes, ceiling roses, switches and sockets, & UPVC windows & doors and if necessary all the radiators. Flash with bleach the floors. Seal anywhere if necessary but aim to get all the gunk off the walls, windows, floors and ceilings. Just wash everything thoroughly. Wear overalls and most importantly, WEAR A BATH HAT. Good luck.

Sugar soap for cleaning. Make it strong and rinse well.

BIN primer sealer for and stubborn tarry stains. Wonderful stuff that smells like puncture repair kits! Buy cheap, disposable paintbrushes to use it with because they clog up fast.

WEAR A BATH HAT so obvious and yet I hadn't thought of it!

Thankfully lighting is just cheap yellowed white plastic pendants everywhere, so am just going to change those for new ones and bin all lampshades.

When cleaning ceiling did you climb step ladders to do a section at a time or would one of those flat floor mops work? I think cleaning the ceiling is my most dreaded part of all the cleaning to do there.