painting or removing woodchip?? help please !

[frixshon]

hi ,

befoe crimbo i plan to re-decorate my frontroom. is it easy to steam off the wallpaper , which has a wood-chip effect , ( i think thats what it is called ) , as i spokme to someone ( an un-reliable source !! - a guy that THINKS he knows it all ) and he told me it would be so difficult to remove i should just paint over it , but i want a smooth painted wall , not a woodchip effect painted wall . hope this makes sense .

 

[stomach]

It can be very difficult to remove woodchip but it will come off, the best thing to use is a steam stripper. Once the woodchip is removed the walls with have to be prepared well before re-painting. Plenty elbow grease required!!

 

[spice]

Woodchip is not the easiest paper to strip, specially if the paper has been painted with a Silk paint.

Its just a matter of patience, time and effort.

Try and score the paper from top to bottom with big crisscrosses, you can buy a score thingy, but I have always used a knife to score.

Sometimes its easier whilst your waiting for your steamer to heat up, is to get hot soapy water and soak that into the paper, then when your steamer is ready away you go.

Fabric conditioner is also good instead of soapy water, just add a bit of it in your bucket of hot water, it is very good for getting paper off, and also leaves a nice smell.

 

[CordlessJoe]

You might be lucky - as i stripped my wall with my steam stripper and actually thought it was a doddle. Im a fan of "silk" paint too - the intiailly first tear (as I did not pierce the paper) was the hardest and as it got hotter i found that the paper came off in relatively long pieces and the silk paint turned to a sort of plastic which could be pulled off quite easily. Not sure it its because there were many layers of paint but i found the two layers underneath the hardest - as they came off in tiny pieces - was told by builder that it was probably put on the old way water and powder but not of the stuff we use now. Hope yours is easy.

 

[Zampa]

You can buy a perforator from trade shops..its a double roller with really sharp spikes on it that you roll over the wall before you use a steamer.

 

[spice]

You can buy a perforator from trade shops..its a double roller with really sharp spikes on it that you roll over the wall before you use a steamer.

Yeah! But! Zampa hun, I can see where your coming from and I have seen them advertised, I think they are called a tiger something

But frixshon, save yourself a few bob, and get stuck in scoring with a knife, just be carefull that you dont go too mad and end up disfiguring your walls.

 

[Zampa]

tiger something

Close but no cigar...

Papertiger..

The one im talking about is a 'hedgehog'

I can see how you muddled em up though..tigers and hedgehogs look similar..

But frixshon, save yourself a few bob, and get stuck in scoring with a knife, just be carefull that you dont go too mad and end up disfiguring your walls.

disfigure your what?..oh, walls!..

 

[spice]

well, I knew I was on the right path, its an easy mistake to make, tigers - hedghogs, they all look the same in the dark.

 

[JohnD]

Not all

 

[confidentincompetent]

 

[JohnD]

commoner than I thought

 

[spice]

hahahaha John

Might have to take a trip to Specsavers, either that or eat more carrots.

Lovely pics of tigers btw