Hi all,
Our six-year-old house was wallpapered throughout by the previous owners. We don't like any of it and want to go back to nice painted walls.
Trouble is, when we remove the wallpaper (it comes off quite easily), a lot of the underlying paint comes with it. Like so:
View media item 52494
The plaster underneath the paint is in great condition - it's amazingly smooth - but the huge gaps in the paint are really tricky to cover up. In the first room we tried sanding down all the edges until it felt smooth, then put on a couple of coats of paint. We thought that might have worked, but it didn't. We can still see the outlines of all the patchy bits, and we aren't happy with the result. We don't want lining paper, either.
In a second room we decided to scrape off all the paint. It took forever - the paint is tougher in some areas - but we also came across cracks and loose bits of plaster, presumably due to shrinkage. Anyway, we patched up that room and painted over it (mist coat first, then standard emulsion) and the result isn't bad. However, that was the smallest room in the house and it wasn't quick, so we're not too keen on the idea of scraping the paint off the rest of the house.
We called on a local decorator for some advice, and he agreed; trying to patch up the walls won't look perfect, and trying to scrape off all the paint will drive us mad. His suggestion was to get a plasterer our to re-skim the walls.
It's not something we'd considered - re-plastering sounded expensive and so extreme! But the decorator tells me we should be able to get it done for about £200 per room (maybe less?) and that a plasterer could do a couple of rooms in a day and have it looking like new!
Sounds like the way forward, but I'm hoping to get some opinions from users with more experience than me. Are there any downsides to re-skimming? How thin is the new layer? Will I need to remove all the skirting (hoping to keep it, along with my carpets)? And, possibly silly question, is there any risk of the skim layer coming off?
Our six-year-old house was wallpapered throughout by the previous owners. We don't like any of it and want to go back to nice painted walls.
Trouble is, when we remove the wallpaper (it comes off quite easily), a lot of the underlying paint comes with it. Like so:
View media item 52494
The plaster underneath the paint is in great condition - it's amazingly smooth - but the huge gaps in the paint are really tricky to cover up. In the first room we tried sanding down all the edges until it felt smooth, then put on a couple of coats of paint. We thought that might have worked, but it didn't. We can still see the outlines of all the patchy bits, and we aren't happy with the result. We don't want lining paper, either.
In a second room we decided to scrape off all the paint. It took forever - the paint is tougher in some areas - but we also came across cracks and loose bits of plaster, presumably due to shrinkage. Anyway, we patched up that room and painted over it (mist coat first, then standard emulsion) and the result isn't bad. However, that was the smallest room in the house and it wasn't quick, so we're not too keen on the idea of scraping the paint off the rest of the house.
We called on a local decorator for some advice, and he agreed; trying to patch up the walls won't look perfect, and trying to scrape off all the paint will drive us mad. His suggestion was to get a plasterer our to re-skim the walls.
It's not something we'd considered - re-plastering sounded expensive and so extreme! But the decorator tells me we should be able to get it done for about £200 per room (maybe less?) and that a plasterer could do a couple of rooms in a day and have it looking like new!
Sounds like the way forward, but I'm hoping to get some opinions from users with more experience than me. Are there any downsides to re-skimming? How thin is the new layer? Will I need to remove all the skirting (hoping to keep it, along with my carpets)? And, possibly silly question, is there any risk of the skim layer coming off?
