Did any of the people you had look at the walls actually try an
inconspicuous corner of the wallpaper to see if it would come off easily? I
would hope they did. We recently removed wallpaper from our family room
that had been up for about 28 years. It came off like a dream. Who ever
installed our paper long ago did indeed do proper prep. We were able to
remove it in huge sections and there was basically no residue of any kind
left on the walls. I'm not saying that you necessarily would have as good
luck as we did, but it is possible. If the paper was done properly 28 or 30
years ago, it should come off easily even now.

In a guest bedroom, I recently painted over wallpaper. In this room, there
was wallpaper on 3 walls. The paper was different on each of the walls.
Some came off, but other types did not. I did paint over some of the
existing wall paper. It looks sort of 'OK', but if it were in any room but
an infrequently used guest room, I would do it over. Every tiny wrinkle of
the wallpaper shows up - especially the seams. I actually moved a wall
light fixture after I painted the room. In it's previous location, the
lamp threw light on the newly painted wall in such a way as to spotlight all
the flaws of the paint job. I also put in a lower watt bulb so that the
paint job wouldn't be so obvious. Some day if I get energetic, I will
probably to the room properly.


"Patscga" wrote in message
...
I asked about this before and everybody said don't do it. I've had four
painters come here, plus a wallpaper person, and they all said you can't
remove
wallpaper that was installed 30 years ago without tearing up the wallboard
because they didn't do wall prep back in those days. Then I recalled that
I
did have someone try this many years ago in another room and he ruined the
walls so that I had to have them re-mudded. Now I would like to hear from
someone who has painted over wallpaper successfully, if there is someone
like
that.
Pat