Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

I took down the wallpaper in my dining room and the wall is a mess (paper has been up for at least 60 years). My question is what king of painting will hide the mess (sponge, etc.)? What do I have to do to the wall to prepare for painting them?

I have taken off the glue in some areas and in some areas the walls are ruined. I wanted to stay away from skim coating because we had that done in our last house and every time something hit the wall a mark was left.

Message edited 2/14/2010 11:46:23 AM.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

Have you taken off the glue as well?

If so, then you can skim coat the wall, then sand it down. Then prime and paint.

If it still looks 'lumpy' you can always do a sponge application or a faux finish to hisde the imperfections.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

we had a similar problem when we removed the wallpaper in our living room and dining rooms.

it is absolutely essential that you scrub down the walls with hot water and some kind of soap (like mr clean or simple green, etc). we used plastic kitchen/dish scrubbers (the little hockey puck kind). the glue will be there even if you don't see it.

if the wall paper was put on over plaster walls, you are in better shape than if it was sheet rock or paneling. if the latter, you may not be able to avoid doing a skim coat.

in some places, after we had scrubbed down the wall and put on the first coat of paint, the paint crackled up. we had to sand it down to get it smooth again and then put on an additional two coats of paint. after that, it finally looked ok.

we used BM aura paint in an eggshell finish.

HTH.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

In the areas that have glue, the glue has to be removed. They sell chemicals, sprays, etc at home depot. Spray it on, wait, and then peel or wipe the glue off.

In the areas where the walls are "ruined" I'm imagining you mean that the paper from the sheetrock has also come off and the sheetrock is exposed? In this case the walls must be skim coated...either that or the sheetrock has to be replaced.

That is the impression I got from my painter when we were re-doing all of our bedrooms.

eta: our painter complained about how many homeowners do it wrong b/c they don't know what they are doing and completely ruin perfectly good walls (sheetrock) so just be careful.

Message edited 2/16/2010 3:23:20 PM.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

there is a lot of work you need to do... there is no paint that will cover that.. unless you want it to look bumpy etc.

you will need to wash down the walls, sand them, spackle and sand again. you should probably prime before paint. we dealt with this in our house.. it was a PITA

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

The walls sound like they are in really bad shape...I would go with skim coating them. We had to do this in our house.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

Oh boy, I've been there! We had 60 year old wall paper in our dining room, too. We took it down and the walls were A MESS. We ended up sanding them with a palm sander, then spackling and priming and painting. I'll post pics. It came out more awesome than I ever thought it would! So that's what I suggest. They're not perfectly smooth, but no one would ever know but us and I think it adds to the character.


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Message edited 2/16/2010 7:58:40 PM.

Re: Wall a mess after taking wallpaper down

We had a similar situation after we took down the wall paper in our kitchen. The first thing we did was to spackle and sand as many of the damaged areas we could then we painted with a textured paint from lowes. I didn't think I would like it, but we get so many compliments on it! Good luck!