"Patscga" wrote in message
...
I have a painter who tells me it is better to mud over the seams in the
wallpaper prior to painting than tearing off the paper. His reason is
that the
wall will be in worse shape after tearing off the paper.
Pat

Depends....

Are you doing the work? Hiring it out?

You can successfully remove almost any wallpaper and NOT ruin the wall, but
it takes time if the surface wasn't properly prepared before the wallpaper
was applied. If the wall was painted or primed before the wallpaper was
installed, you can probably pull it down fairly easily using a scorer,
wallpaper remover, and maybe a steamer. If the wall wasn't properly
prepared, it just takes ten times as long.

In either case, you can get the wallpaper down without tearing up the
sheetrock. However, if you get in a hurry, you can make a big mess and wreck
your sheetrock.

The *right* way to do it it to remove the wallpaper. The expedient way may
be to spackle the seams and paint over the wallpaper.

KB