preparing plastered walls for emulsioning General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[hollyanne]

We are soon to be removing into a house where all the walls have been papered in blown vinyl. My intention is to remove this and just emulsion the walls. I have just done the small bedroom to start with, and the walls underneath are sound (the house is about forty years old). The problem is when removing the wallpaper in places it has pulled off pieces of the underlying emulsion and sanding alone will not leave a smooth enough finish.My son insists the only way is to have every room re-skimmed which to me seems a very expensive way of correcting this. Please advise!

[theshedman]

Hi hollyanne, there is no need to reskim the walls. Where the emulsion is coming off all you should need to do is use a wide filler knife and fill the areas where the emulsion has come off. Leave it to dry then sand it down so that it's flat. It will be best to then give these areas a coat or 2 of thinned down emulsion, this will act as a sealer to stop the new emulsion drying out to quickly. Allow that to dry then lightly sand before emulsioning the whole wall. Make sure that you have got all the paste off the walls before emulsioning them. Otherwise you will get bubbles in the paint and they will look terrible. Good luck.

[hollyanne]

Thanks for this information - I will try it. Can I wash the walls down with wasing up liquid and a scouring pad or do I use sugarsoap instead?

[theshedman]

Hi hollyanne, whichever one it comes off easiest with. Just make sure that you wash it with clean water afterwards to make sure all the residue is off.