Paint Over Wallpaper

cynthiann

We are working up an estimate on a paintover. This lady has wallpaper in good condition on many of her walls and she wants to use coranado flat. What's the best way to prep the wallpapered walls? She has a relative who is a drywaller and will skim over it if need be. Is this the way to go for a good end result? Also, the other walls are painted with glossy paint...I'm assuming a primer is in order here, right?...then one coat or two of the flat on top?

phinsher

The best way to prep the wallpapered walls is to first strip the wallpaper. Clean all the paste off then use appropriate primer. From what you were saying it looks like you want to paint over the wallpaper. Not sure how that works, but I remember reading some posts about people doing it with good results.

With the glossy walls I'd clean, sand prime then 2 coats. You might be ok with 2 coats of paint or even one coat of primer and one coat of paint. But my approach is "better safe than sorry"!

slickshift

The best way to paint over wallcovering is not to

The proper way is to strip the covering
There is too much that can go wrong and look bad by painting over w/c
It's really not a good idea on so many levels

If the w/c was put up incorrectly, like right to the drywall, and removal would rip more drywall than is acceptably repairable, then, as a last resort, painting over the w/c may be considered
But it is truly a last resort

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Originally Posted by ModernStyle I have never used this crap before and I pray to the paint gods that I never have to use it again, I would rather use Behr

firemike

Cindy,

I agree with Phinisher, strip the wallpaper. It will probably cost less and be less of a mess than skim-coating the walls anyway. I know from first hand experiance. After I bought my house, I discovered that someone had painted over the wallpaper (at least 3 coats of paint) in the living room and 2 bedrooms. Well, after a couple years, the wallpaper has started to let loose from the walls in a few places, I am guessing from trapped moisture behind the paper loosening the adhesive. It usually happens the worst in the fall/early winter when the high summer moisture is leaving the walls.

Talk about a nightmare. Stripping is next to impossible as you can't soak it because of the paint layers, and steaming in ineffective too. Tried differnt methods, but it did more damage to the drywall. I ended up gutting the living room and redrywalling, still have to do the bedrooms. I'd like to find the $%@$#$% that painted over the paper in the first place and give them a proper "education".

My only advise, do it right the first time, as your reputation is at stake, and you will be the one called if someting does go wrong. You also might be the one to have to deal with it in the future as well. I have been doing work on some clients houses and businesses for over twenty years, so I always try to do things to make it easier on the "next guy," which it is usually me. But if not, at least the next guy or gal will have an easier time dealing with what I have done.

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-Mike-

AAPaint

My thoughts exactly...and the reason I didn't weigh in on this thread when I first saw it. There's absolutely no way to guarantee a good finished product on something like this. I wasn't even going to put my name on this conversation.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

lornmastro

i once was offered a job to strip wallpaper that had been painted over...since i was sooo green i asked the guys at sw what they would do they said"i don;t know a single painter that would go near a job like that...turn it down!!! so i did...thank goodness!! i would try and talk them out of it first but if they still insist let them know there will be no guarantees.

Teetorbilt

No way would I touch this job as stated. It will come around to bite you in the rear. Strip it!

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chris n

http://www.wallpaperinstaller.com/wa...stripping.html

Patrick

As long as the paper was applied well in the first place, and there are no peeling seams, there is no reason why you cant paint over it. The mistake most people make is using either no primer or a latex primer, which causes bleed though to the finish paint. If you sand down all the seems and apply an OIL based primer such as BM Fresh Start 024 or even better BM Fresh Start 217 Enamel Underbody, and quality top coat the job comes out very well. If you do strip the paper a mistake a lot of people make is not getting every trace of glue off, if you dont, and dont use an oil based primer you get bleed through issues. PK

lornmastro

have to tell a funny story....pima donna is moving into a million dollar home and NEEDS the whole house painted before she moves in....they hire a team of male carpenters to paint the downstairs and we woman were ALLOCATED the 3rd floor to start with....since we were moving so quickly compared to the guys...we ended up painting 11 rooms to there 3....they did a horrible job trim lines( my 9 yr old dtr could of done a better job)/paint is now coming off the kitchen wall since they didn't remove all glue from wallpaper and didn't know to oil base prime....anyhow back to my story so husband is a male shovenist but is a d.i.y. and decides he wants to paint the family room (it had a border on the wall and he doesn't want to remove it) i tell him he needs to oil base prime over the border or take it down... if he doesn't latex will release the glue bla bla bla....doesn't want to listen to me after all what do i know i'm just a dumb blonde woman painter....he works late into the nite spackling the border /wall line so the border won't show....gets there early the next morning....starts rolling the walls and low and behold...da... the border starts to come down!!!!!lol really hard... THAT was the highlight to this dumb broads painting career...needless to say we are now the homeowner painters of choice EVEN THOUGH WE ARE WOMAN!!!! LOL