Bought terraced victorian and took off the wallpaper

[af7]

Hello!

I recently purchased a three-bedroom mid-terraced Edwardian and spent my first evening taking off the wallpaper. I'm originally from the US so I don't have a lot of experience with interior plaster and would like a few suggestions or points to the focus on from the wiki article.

Essentially, three of the walls in a room were (in descending order from the surface) ...

1. Painted flat-surface wallpaper
2. Differently coloured wallpaper
3. Orange textured wallpaper
4. A thin (2mm) pink "skimmed" surface
5. A thin (2mm) white "skimmed surface
6. A thick scratched concrete-like surface
7. The interior bricks

On one wall (party wall) a few bits of the "pink skimmed" surface were bubbled and came off. Especially where it was patched up with what looks like unsanded joint compound. Seems like a bad repair job.

On the rear exterior wall ... a lot of the "pink" and "white" skimmed came off along to expose the concrete-like surface and in one or two places it's down the brick.

On the third wall (with chimney), it's mostly down to the "concrete." And most of the "pink" and "white" skimmed have fallen off.

On the final wall, it's plasterboard.

Essentially, I find myself relatively handy, but have minimal experience with interior plastering. I'd like to add this my repertoire of skills, if at all possible. I'm willing to deal with the failures if they happen.

We'd like no paper on the walls but be able to paint them all with the same paint, so I assume this means some sort of plaster on the drywall.

Would you have any suggestions?

I'm off to get some X-tex for the ceiling ... wish us luck.

Also, I added a few photos to demonstrate the damage and to clarify some issues.

Many thanks for the help!

 

[af7]

By the way, I thought it was important to start with the thumbs-up photo and to finish with the thumbs-up photo

 

[vinn]

From what I can see in the pics, & from what you say - it might be that all the plastered wall surfaces will have to be hacked off back to bare brick?

The background material is probably a crumbling render of sand and lime, not concrete.

The plaster board is pinned to a stud framing partition - probably done to enlarge the room on the other side.

Why not pay a professional plasterer to come on site & give you a heads up as to the condition of the walls and what to do about the textured ceiling?

For a couple of reasons, the radiator is in a bad position - rads should not go on a chimney breast face.
While you are doing this work, the chimney breast flue should be opened up and swept - all flues in the house should also be opened and swept - and left with a vent top & bottom for through ventilation.

Were there any signs of water damage or leaks in the bedroom?
Is the exterior wall in exposed brick or has it been rendered?

 

[af7]

Good questions and answers:

It does indeed seem that the stud-framed drywall was added to expand the bathroom. That's the wall I'm least concerned with. As I've seen lots of it in the states.

That radiator is in a crap position and we're looking at moving it away from the chimney and removing the chimney breast below on the ground floor (with proper support added.)

On the whole, the mixture of sand/lime, looks quite good with the original scoring marks will available in most locations (only a few spots of crumbling on one wall.)

There doesn't appear to be any water damage that I can see, however the rear wall is not rendered externally and thus might have been letting water/damp in through faulty points.

We're thinking of changing the window out while we have the plaster off.

We'll definitely get a few people in for suggestions once we strip off all of the wallpaper from the house. It seems that some lath and plaster walls are present in other rooms.

Anyways, I wanted to get a discussion going as I'm sure that I'll get a few people stating that everything goes back to the bricks and others will just suggest to fill the holes and smooth it over. I can see both sides: a proper job vs. a cheap renovation. The floorboards needs to get lifted and sanded anyway, so it will be interesting to see what's under there.

Thanks for the commentary and have a good evening.

 

[John D v2.0]

If you're doing it your self, my diy experience is I patched with new backing plaster and then tried to skim over the whole wall after a couple of layers of PVA. It was a more tricky situation than yours as it was a bay window, but the differing suction between the new and old made it impossible to get a good finish.
So my vote would be if you patch it in with backing plaster, try to use plenty of layers of PVA to even out the suction. And maybe buy enough finish coat to do one attempt, then come back the next day to do it all again after practice!!
Good luck!