On Feb 11, 6:32 pm, "Jimmie D" wrote:
What could make removing wallpapare so difficult? My wife and I decided
someone put it up with carpenters glue.

I hear you - we're in a similar situation in my house. We've become
experts at techniques for painting over wallpaper, because our
repeated attempts at getting the paper down have only made things
worse. We've got stuff up that's probably original to the 1923
construction. I've never seen wallpaper like this; we take off the
first four or five layers and the last one is always this stuff that's
like 1/8" thick and comes off in chunks, usually taking some of the
plaster with it. Anything we use that's strong enough to dissolve the
glue does the same to the wall behind it. It looks worse to remove it
than it does to just sand and spackle over the seams, prime and paint.

I actually wish I had sheetrock walls sometimes so I could just rip
them all down and rebuild them - it would be easier than trying to
remove this 85 year old wallpaper from plaster.

- Jeff

On Feb 12, 9:27 am, h wrote:

??? I had the same thing in my 200-year-old house, and most of the walls are
plaster, not drywall. All you have to do is spray with water, wait 2
minutes, then scrap off however many layers were soaked.

Nope. Tried it.

If that didn't take
you down to the plaster, repeat the procedure until it does. Takes about 8
hours for two people to remove many layers of wallpaper in an average sized
room.

Nope. Try 2 months of trying everything multiple times. What kind of
idiot do you think I am? We tried water, steam, ZIF, everything
else. The only way to get the bottom layer of paper off was to take
large pieces of the wall with it.

You do
realize you'll never sell your house once you've painted over wallpaper,
right?

I realize I *will* sell my house with painted over wallpaper, because
a) nobody can tell the difference and it looks much, much better than
the wallpaper that we painted over, b) the house already had painted-
over wallpaper in some rooms when we bought it (and there were three
other offers on the table), and c) *every* house in this area has
painted-over wallpaper somewhere, and most of it wasn't done right at
all, so it's really obvious. This is not a historic house or a
historic area, but it does have a lot of old houses full of DIY
redecorators. Believe me, I'm basing this on our house-hunting
experience.

You *do* realize it's not that big of a deal to just re-plaster a
wall, right? Takes 2 people about 8 hours to do a room

We've done that in one room and would do it in more if need be. But
man, seriously - you cannot tell the difference - we only did that one
room because of settling cracks that we wanted to hide. There's
really no need to re-plaster anywhere else.

Some people get stuck on thinking there's only one right way to do
things. If you've got wallpaper stuck on so hard that you can't get
it off without damaging the wall, it *will* look better to just paint
over it. Pull off what you can, sand the hell out of it, spackle the
seams and the edges, sand the hell out of it again, prime, sand some
more, then paint. Looks like a new wall. Much better than a wall
with a bunch of pockmarks in it from trying to dig stubborn wallpaper
out.

- Jeff

wrote in message
...
On Feb 12, 9:27 am, h wrote:

??? I had the same thing in my 200-year-old house, and most of the walls are
plaster, not drywall. All you have to do is spray with water, wait 2
minutes, then scrap off however many layers were soaked.

Nope. Tried it.

If that didn't take
you down to the plaster, repeat the procedure until it does. Takes about 8
hours for two people to remove many layers of wallpaper in an average sized
room.

Nope. Try 2 months of trying everything multiple times. What kind of
idiot do you think I am? We tried water, steam, ZIF, everything
else. The only way to get the bottom layer of paper off was to take
large pieces of the wall with it.

You do
realize you'll never sell your house once you've painted over wallpaper,
right?

I realize I *will* sell my house with painted over wallpaper, because
a) nobody can tell the difference and it looks much, much better than
the wallpaper that we painted over, b) the house already had painted-
over wallpaper in some rooms when we bought it (and there were three
other offers on the table), and c) *every* house in this area has
painted-over wallpaper somewhere, and most of it wasn't done right at
all, so it's really obvious. This is not a historic house or a
historic area, but it does have a lot of old houses full of DIY
redecorators. Believe me, I'm basing this on our house-hunting
experience.

You *do* realize it's not that big of a deal to just re-plaster a
wall, right? Takes 2 people about 8 hours to do a room

We've done that in one room and would do it in more if need be. But
man, seriously - you cannot tell the difference - we only did that one
room because of settling cracks that we wanted to hide. There's
really no need to re-plaster anywhere else.

Some people get stuck on thinking there's only one right way to do
things. If you've got wallpaper stuck on so hard that you can't get
it off without damaging the wall, it *will* look better to just paint
over it. Pull off what you can, sand the hell out of it, spackle the
seams and the edges, sand the hell out of it again, prime, sand some
more, then paint. Looks like a new wall. Much better than a wall
with a bunch of pockmarks in it from trying to dig stubborn wallpaper
out.

My first house had painted over wallpaper. I had to scrape the whole room with a
dinner fork to get the steamer to work on the paper over plaster. I tried
steaming an attic room with painted wallpaper over wallboard, and had to
re-wallboard it due to the wallboard sagging between the studs/joists.

Bob F wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Feb 12, 9:27 am, h wrote:

??? I had the same thing in my 200-year-old house, and most of the walls are
plaster, not drywall. All you have to do is spray with water, wait 2
minutes, then scrap off however many layers were soaked.

Nope. Tried it.

If that didn't take
you down to the plaster, repeat the procedure until it does. Takes about 8
hours for two people to remove many layers of wallpaper in an average sized
room.

Nope. Try 2 months of trying everything multiple times. What kind of
idiot do you think I am? We tried water, steam, ZIF, everything
else. The only way to get the bottom layer of paper off was to take
large pieces of the wall with it.

You do
realize you'll never sell your house once you've painted over wallpaper,
right?

I realize I *will* sell my house with painted over wallpaper, because
a) nobody can tell the difference and it looks much, much better than
the wallpaper that we painted over, b) the house already had painted-
over wallpaper in some rooms when we bought it (and there were three
other offers on the table), and c) *every* house in this area has
painted-over wallpaper somewhere, and most of it wasn't done right at
all, so it's really obvious. This is not a historic house or a
historic area, but it does have a lot of old houses full of DIY
redecorators. Believe me, I'm basing this on our house-hunting
experience.

You *do* realize it's not that big of a deal to just re-plaster a
wall, right? Takes 2 people about 8 hours to do a room

We've done that in one room and would do it in more if need be. But
man, seriously - you cannot tell the difference - we only did that one
room because of settling cracks that we wanted to hide. There's
really no need to re-plaster anywhere else.

Some people get stuck on thinking there's only one right way to do
things. If you've got wallpaper stuck on so hard that you can't get
it off without damaging the wall, it *will* look better to just paint
over it. Pull off what you can, sand the hell out of it, spackle the
seams and the edges, sand the hell out of it again, prime, sand some
more, then paint. Looks like a new wall. Much better than a wall
with a bunch of pockmarks in it from trying to dig stubborn wallpaper
out.

My first house had painted over wallpaper. I had to scrape the whole room with a
dinner fork to get the steamer to work on the paper over plaster. I tried
steaming an attic room with painted wallpaper over wallboard, and had to
re-wallboard it due to the wallboard sagging between the studs/joists.

Well I got all the drywall replaced today and ready to prime and
paint. Glad I did it this way. I was able to update the electrical in
the room adding better lighting, a second outlet for my side of the
lav and staighten a wavy wall. It took about an hour to tear out the
walls and about four more to replace the drywall and do framing and
electrical changes. I put wife and son busy cleaning up the mess. I
was afraid that where the ceiling met the wall would crack if I just
repired the ceiling but this is a good as,better than, new. One thing
I am not looking forward to doing is having the popcorn ceiling blown
but its either replace it here or tear it out of the rest of the
house,I'm tempted . I did get a good deal from a guy who I know does
good work, He will blow it for $90 if I have it masked off and primed
for him.

Jimmie