Woodchip everywhere!

[Healthyban]

Enormous amounts of neatly thickly painted in gloss Woodchip.
whats best? (quickest and easiest)
Can I..a)score, steam, scrape?
b) skim with plaster
c) wallpaper over with thick lining paper?
in hall up the stairs and 4 rooms.
thank you!

I feel your pain. One house had lining paper covered with shellac varnish, perhaps the woodchip of its day.
Lots of steam and elbow grease.

We had a house with a living room like this. I think we only skimmed over the top! Doesn't sound as though that was the right thing to do, but it was the method our (dodgy) plasterer used. It was before internet etc and we were young with our first house and no information readily at hand. We lived there for 15 years after that, though, and there were no problems with the plaster or any cracking.
Before we got it plastered we tried to remove the woodchip but the wall started crumbling away with it.

This is our house... 5 years on finally got the last of the stuff off. Heavy duty scraper is the way to go plus a wallpaper steamer. Like others have said it seems to uncover plaster issues. Good luck.

I have just done 3 rooms of this. Took 6 days. Buy some DIF wallpaper stripper. Score walls and apply the DIF with garden sprayer (as per bottle instructions). Wait 15 mins and to it again. Then repeat. Do this day before and then attack it with a wallpaper steam and the good scrapers. If I had done this to begin with it would've taken much less time!!

Are you sure it’s gloss paint and not emulsion?

If it’s gloss you’ve got a bit problem because it’ll be impervious to water. If it’s emulsion use a spiky roller on it, wet it thoroughly and use a steamer and stripping tool.

You can buy a spiked perforating roller on amazon for about £15.

Thanks everyone!
it’s shiny is all I know so maybe silk emulsion.
am sorely tempted to slap Matt farrow and ball type colours on it and a LOT of pictures

Hello! Well after some consideration, we will slap Matt on. For now. Hopefully it won’t catch the light on the bumps the way the silk/ gloss is. One day I will hire an architect and an interior designer who will get rid of it all and put up hand painted de gournet paper and install a de vol kitchen. Off to buy a lottery ticket! Thanks everyone- for taking the time to advise- much appreciated x

I would try and hire a steamer, the domestic one we had did work but as the water tank was built onto the steamer bit,but was quite heavy and tiring on the arms

But yea you need to score and as woodchip is essentially two layers of paper with wood in between...it's a big job

Word on the little estate where we lived was they still having woodchip (put in by builders) reduced the house price 😅

Try hand-peeling off the glossy surface first before scoring – the risk with scoring is damaging the plaster underneath, ours is lime, and you don’t want to have to pay to replaster if you can help it.

Then steam off the woodchippy backing. The trick is to frequently change blades in your scraper, get the whole thing really sodden and sometimes whole sheets will come off at once. An empty room can be 90% done in a morning, then the 10% is all the corners and bits round switches and random impossible bastard bits.

You have to be scrupulous about glue removal/sealing before painting otherwise it all goes wrong. Clean and sand, clean and sand, fill pick marks, sand, clean, then coat with Zinsser Gardz to seal in any glue residue. Do a bog-standard white emulsion on top of the Gardz - not because you need one or a mist coat but otherwise you need more colour (especially pales/neutrals) to cover the plaster colour (especially the grey lime plaster). Then paint as usual.

This was once glossy magnolia woodchip!