Walls! They’re fairly uneven?

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Decorating a house - it’s a 70s one. The walls are quite uneven. I’ve used poly filler on the deep holes but the whole wall is quite rough. If I tried to fill all then I would be using poly filler on all of it! Anyone know how to make a wall even, when the ‘pits’ aren’t that deep?? Without plastering the whole thing? Would sanding work?

There is stuff you can buy that's like a fine filler and you can trowel it over like a skim coat. Unless you're good at things like that though, it will be time consuming, messy and you'll never achieve a perfect finish.

After once spending days on a wall and lots of money on materials, I got it feeling really smooth. Then I painted it and it looked really bumpy again and I swore never to bother in future and just get similar walls skimmed!

Just to add, depending how much light the room gets, is how bad it will look. The room I struggled with was south facing and the light showed up every flaw.

That’s how woodchip wallpaper became popular.

Following with interest as we have the same problem in my house. The building itself went up in the 1850s, but it was converted (probably very cheaply!) into houses in the 1970s. Nightmare for decorating, especially when we installed new skirting as it’s beautifully flush in some areas, then gappy at the top in others! There isn’t a single straight wall in the whole place 😂 short of having the entire house replastered (at what cost?!), I’m not sure what else to do with it. The light catches the living room wall throughout the day and I shudder at all the grooves and bumps in the plaster 🫣

I would get prep the walls and get a a quote for skimming it.

And other flat lining papers.

I think as others have said either you have to get a reskim for perfect paintable walls. The other options are lining paper or leaning into it being a bit bumpy and patch up and then use a limewash or distemper coating that will somewhat blend out lesser imperfections

I mix up a slightly loose mix of powder white filler (e.g. easifill). Then I use a plastering trowel to scrape the filler across the whole wall. The filler is liquid enough to get pushed into the 'pits'. Next day I'll wipe a block with 120 sandpaper on it over the whole wall to make smooth.

This normally needs repeating (maybe twice) because filler always shrinks. The filler is so soft that it is easy to sand. It creates terrible quantities of dust so I use a sanding block with vacuum attachment. Often I'll paint wall with dulux supermatt which creates a smashing base for painting and also shows up imperfections. repeat until perfection. It's a labour of love. I can plaster skim, but I generally don't unless the skim has come away or the wall is abysmal.