AIBU to disagree with DH that these walls need to be sanded?

[BaconBrownSauce]

Decent sized front bedroom, Victorian so walls are 9ft tall. We are now changing it to a nursery and want to paint the walls.

Unfortunately, whoever lived here before put a textured, gritty effect paint on the walls.

DH is saying we need to sand them all back to smooth. (He has a little handheld mouse sander!)

I think sanding will be a million times more trouble than it’s worth, the dust would be horrifying, and we should just live with it.

Who’s right?!

You can buy tubs of ready mixed smoothing plaster and apply it yourself over the textured paint. You can sand it after applying also. Wont be perfect but will be a lot better. Paint over it with a Matt paint will help hide the imperfections. I’ve used it throughout our house renovaton. It’s designed for small areas and probably not cost effective for an entire room but depends on the size. Google “smoothing plaster”

It is not woodchip.

It is not wood chip.

Thank you for the concern about asbestos. My understanding is that asbestos manufactured prior to the 80s was dangerous. This wall paint was applied in 2021 or 2022 so I think we are safe in disturbing it.

Thanks all for your suggestions! I’ll let you know what we decide and how it goes.

(It is still not wood chip.)

Are you absolutely certain? I've seen so many that look exactly like yours and turned to be woodchip.

If it isn't, then definitely test for asbestos.

As another said, I would be very cautious that it's not asbestos.
Personally I would have it tested. If asbestos, I'd have removed by a specialist but in any case I would be replastering.

On thinking further, I couldn't afford a plasterer either, so I did a course over a couple of weekends and learned to do it myself. It's not difficult and is a good skill to have.

I would have it re-plastered. You’re never going to achieve a good finish with that as a base.

I would just get the walls skimmed

Good call - reckon that could be it.

In your position I'd try scraping as much off as possible with a wallpaper scraper. If it was slapped on by amateurs, it was probably put on in one massive thick layer which will make peeling it off a little bit easier.

Let us know how you get on! And congratulations on your pregnancy!

My DH did this - learned from YouTube. Takes times and practice and is very messy, but he did the whole house plus ceilings. Saved us thousands!

I would find a decent heavy duty lining paper. No worrying about asbestos, no sanding (seriously don't do this it's awful and will still look bad), good finish for painting later on, can be done quickly.

Why not try and area with each if you are unsure. An area of lining paper, an area of scraped/steamed and an area of sanded and see which is most work/best result.

Seriously don't sand it unless you are repainting, carpeting and refurbishing the house completely. I sanded our Victorian plaster walls once. We still found the dust after hoovering a decade afterwards. I'm now worried about asbestos after reading all of these...😔

Looks like they painted over gloss/1980s 'satin' to cover the previous shit job.

Seriously, you're better off going over with a layer of PVA, then lining the walls and then papering or painting over the top if you can't stretch to skimming it - because it isn't properly gripping to the underlying surface, just painting over will lead to bits coming off in lumps, clumps and sheets, mostly around 5 hours after you've just finished the final coat (don't ask me how I know this OK, it was the ex insisting that we could just paint over the top of it and it'll be fine).

It is just one room. Easier to do it correctly now rather than later with a toddler underfoot. Don't settle for a shit job. Scrape it all off, replaster it yourselves since you know how and then paint. You'll be glad it's done before baby arrives!
Congratulations!

try steaming it off