Help! Wallpaper removal has become a disaster...
 

My wife decided to remove the wallpaper in one bedroom and so she could
paint the wall. The paper was put up five years ago on top of painted
drywall. Over the years, the paper started coming up at the seams and she
glued it back down. Now, after removing the wallpaper, the glued spots
remain. When I scrape off a glue spot, it pulls up the top layer on the
drywall, leaving a brown area. I've tried sanding the spots down with an
electric sander but it isn't going well. I now have a multilevel wall: the
original paint, glue spots, original drywall surface, and brown drywall. A
disaster.

I'm looking for ideas (other than burning down the house and starting over).
I've read about the Zinsser GARDZ and wonder if I can paint it on top of
everything then smooth out the worst areas with drywall compound?

Help!

Mike

mikegi wrote:
My wife decided to remove the wallpaper in one bedroom and so she could
paint the wall. The paper was put up five years ago on top of painted
drywall. Over the years, the paper started coming up at the seams and she
glued it back down. Now, after removing the wallpaper, the glued spots
remain. When I scrape off a glue spot, it pulls up the top layer on the
drywall, leaving a brown area. I've tried sanding the spots down with an
electric sander but it isn't going well. I now have a multilevel wall: the
original paint, glue spots, original drywall surface, and brown drywall. A
disaster.

I'm looking for ideas (other than burning down the house and starting over).
I've read about the Zinsser GARDZ and wonder if I can paint it on top of
everything then smooth out the worst areas with drywall compound?

Yes. Generously spackle over the bumps and feather it out. This should hide
the bumps and compensate for rips and divots as well. Then prime before top
coating.

Randy

"Randy" wrote...
mikegi wrote:
My wife decided to remove the wallpaper in one bedroom and so she could
paint the wall. The paper was put up five years ago on top of painted
drywall. Over the years, the paper started coming up at the seams and
she
glued it back down. Now, after removing the wallpaper, the glued spots
remain. When I scrape off a glue spot, it pulls up the top layer on the
drywall, leaving a brown area. I've tried sanding the spots down with an
electric sander but it isn't going well. I now have a multilevel wall:
the
original paint, glue spots, original drywall surface, and brown drywall.
A
disaster.

I'm looking for ideas (other than burning down the house and starting
over).
I've read about the Zinsser GARDZ and wonder if I can paint it on top of
everything then smooth out the worst areas with drywall compound?

Yes. Generously spackle over the bumps and feather it out. This should
hide
the bumps and compensate for rips and divots as well. Then prime before
top
coating.

Randy

Do I need to use Zinsser GARDZ or would the regular Zinsser primer work?
They don't have the Zinsser GARDZ at my local Lowes and I don't see it on
Home Depot's website.

Lowes has two Zinsser primers, regular and shellac:

http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...-000000570-200
1
http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...-000000570-901


Either one better for the job?

Thanks,
Mike

Last time I removed the wallpaper from my then newly acquired house it
wasn't much different from what you described. What I did was:

1. use a scraper to remove all the glue spots.
2. use drywall compound to feather over all indented area
3. sand all the mudded area flat
4. prime
4.5 at this point, all my mistake from step 1-3 became
pretty obvious and need to be corrected.
5. paint

FC

mikegi wrote:
(snip)
When I scrape off a glue spot, it pulls up the top layer on the
drywall, leaving a brown area. I've tried sanding the spots down with an
electric sander but it isn't going well. I now have a multilevel wall: the
original paint, glue spots, original drywall surface, and brown drywall. A
disaster.

I'm looking for ideas (other than burning down the house and starting over).
I've read about the Zinsser GARDZ and wonder if I can paint it on top of
everything then smooth out the worst areas with drywall compound?

Help!

Mike

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:04:07 -0400, someone wrote:


I'm looking for ideas (other than burning down the house and starting over).
I've read about the Zinsser GARDZ and wonder if I can paint it on top of
everything then smooth out the worst areas with drywall compound?

1) No mere drywall patching problem, in only one room too, is that
big of a disaster.

2) Power sanding an already low spot is going the wrong way - sanders
remove material, and the area is already low.

3) Personally, I think you have the process a little reversed - I
think you should compound over the low areas first, before painting
anything more on it.

I raised a whole posse of teen boys, and we had several more severe
drywall problems than just some paper pulls. Small drywall patching
is the perfect DIY project because it is time consuming but not rocket
science to do at all - a pro does a good job FAST, and there are
tricks of the trade. But you can get as good or better a job
yourself, it will just take you a lot longer.

BTW - I seldom see pros sanding much if at all. Try sponging. If you
think a lot of sanding is needed, you probably did something else
wrong anyway. The amount I sanded went way way down after I had done
a few seams.

-v.