Moved into a house where the previous owners got trigger happy with wallpaper - every room is lined with the stuff, and I don't like any of it!
So the plan is to remove it and go good ol' magnolia to give us a blank canvas to work with. Never worked with wallpaper before, so we thought we'd try one of the upstairs rooms. Here's a breakdown of what we've done and where we are right now:
- Used a steam wallpaper stripper to remove wallpaper - it came off nice and easy. Not sure what kind of wallpaper it was, but the top layer peeled away and the 'underlay?' peeled off with a bit of steam. However, it did take patches of paint with it, leaving walls that look patchy - mostly painted, but some big bits where the paint has come away leaving the bare plaster. House is only seven years old, so plaster is in good condition.
- Sanded down and removed any flaky bits. This helped reduce the ridge between the paint and the plaster, made it feel very smooth but we had a feeling the patches may still show through the paint to follow.
- Applied a mist coat - 80 per cent matt emulsion, 20 per cent water.
- Applied a neat coat - 100 per cent matt emulsion.
After all that, it doesn't look all that bad but if you go up close and inspect you can make out the areas where the patches used to be. We've got lots of time and lots of patience, so we want to get it absolutely right. Just not sure how to go about it.
We could maybe:
Add a few more coats and hope it evens out completely (unlikely, I think)
Remove all the paint to leave bare plaster and then re-do the mist coat and paint over (is it even possible to remove the existing paint?)
Get something like Ronseal Smooth and Repair to cover all the patches then sand down again (never used the stuff and it's quite expensive at £20+ a pot)
Get someone out to re-skim the walls (haven't had any quotes, but sounds expensive)
Or is there another option?
*Edit* Forgot to add, we do not want to put wallpaper on again, including lining or anything of that sort.