Woodchip General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[ageorge]

Hi

I'm new to the forum and need some advice please.

I'm trying to help decorate my mum's house (as a complete DIY newbie!) and in one of the bedrooms there is woodchip wallpaper. I tried to remove some yesterday to see what was underneath and unfortunately its plasterboard. So how do i go about removing the woodchip? I'm assuming I shouldnt use a steamer as it will surely make the plasterboard very wet and potentially damage it?

The layers on the wall seem to be - Woodchip, paint then plasterboard. I tried scraping after wetting the wall slightly but ended up scraping/scoring the plasterboard which is not good.

Any ideas please would be fantastic.

Thanks

Anthony

[theshedman]

Hi Anthony, not the best surface to get paper off. I think that you will need to carry on with wetting it and scraping. If you put a bit of washing up liquid in with some warm water it will keep the paper damp for longer without getting the plasterboard too wet. You are right about the steamer, they do get everything very wet and may damage the plasterboard. Try to keep the scraper as flat to the wall as possible so as not to get too many digs in the plasterboard. Once it's all off just repair the cracks and marks in the plasterboard with polyfiller. If it was my place I would probably skim the walls after the paper was off to make life easier the next time and it would give a better finish to work with.

Good luck.

[acsimpson]

You could get the wall skimmed with the paper still in place. Or take it off and then skim what is left of the plasterboard.

[theshedman]

Hi, the only problem with getting it reskimmed with paper still in place is if it starts to bubble or as in some cases you start getting woodchips in with the plaster. I have seen this happen in the past and it's not a pretty sight. If it works by leaving the plaster on it will save a lot of time and effort, but if it does start to come away it will make the job a lot harder.