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Painting Plaster Walls?

January 30, 2008

Green Plaster WallsI own an old 4000 sq ft house, that is mostly plaster covered by wallpaper. The wallpaper is starting to come off in places and I want to take it all down and paint the walls. I (thankfully) started in 1 of the smaller hallways to find lots of cracks in the plaster. I bought some mud and tape and after quite a bit of practice, I fixed the walls in that small area.

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I have a lot more wallpaper to strip. Does anyone have any advice on faster ways to prep the plaster or bypass it all together with painting techniques. I do not have much experience in this type of work, but want to learn. Plus it would be way to expensive to hire someone to do the work..

Steve from Blair, Nebraska

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January 30, 20080 found this helpful

There's a type of paint called "High Hiding" that's supposed to cover wallpaper, cracks, and other texture problems. I'm sure there's other paints made for this purpose. If someplace like Home Depot doesn't have it a paint store probably does.

 
By valleau (Guest Post)
January 31, 20080 found this helpful

Aaargh... Old wallpaper is just awful. I wouldn't even attempt to take it off unless your walls are just crumbling under it. Kilz works wonders (get the oil based kilz) I'm not familiar with the product the other reply mentioned, but you can also get a texture product to put in paint.

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It's like sand. I had my son's rock band totally screw up the walls in their band room and I wasn't about to replace the drywall, so I got this texture and man, what a miracle! good luck. Just stick with it- don't get discouraged.

 
January 31, 20080 found this helpful

my advice is to paint the wallpaper-if your house is very old, as mine is, removing the wallpaper can add stress to the plaster and cause more cracks or even cause the plaster to lose it's key (holding ability)
I would go to HGTV.com to get more specific advice if you really need to remove the wallpaper.

 
February 1, 20080 found this helpful

Good tips! Thanks!!

 

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February 1, 20080 found this helpful

We've renovated old homes, and removing old wall paper often takes the plaster with it, leaving the wall with holes and/or chunks missing. The best way to fix it, is to put new plasterboard up, right over the old wall. You still have to tape and use mud, etc. And it is a big mess, but you end up with new walls. A quick and cheap way is to make sure all the old wallpaper is securely attached, clean and use a good primer, and use a textured paint right on top.

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Places prone to earthquakes often use this approach to repair walls in homes since it can hide a multitude of repairs. The problem is, these surfaces are a lot harder to clean. Whatever you choose, you will have lots of work ahead of you. Good luck.

 
February 1, 20080 found this helpful

When I was much younger (I believe I was in the 8th grade at the time), my sister and I removed wallpaper from the walls in our room. It had several layers of paper laid over plaster. What we had to do was dampen the paper and remove sometimes only a layer at a time. It took us several days. I remember we took old cloths, wet them with water (and I think we got them pretty wet for the job) and wet the paper with the cloths.

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I think nowadays there are rollers with small spikes in them that can be rolled over the walls prior to dampening the paper.

The thing to remember with plaster walls is causing as little stress on the plaster as possible. I would do as susanmajp said or even buy some very light colored paneling. I had a wall done in white paneling once and I really liked it.

 
By Russell (Guest Post)
September 11, 20080 found this helpful

I am not sure if this thread is still active, but thought that I would add my 2 cents in case others find it while looking for help. I am in the process of renovating a 1930 home with lath and plaster. Most of the home had several layers of wallpaper on both the walls and ceiling. We used a steamer (which you can buy at Lowes/Home Depot for ~ $50) to remove the wallpaper. Once an area had steam applied to it, it could usually be scraped off with a putty knife.

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It helped to rip off the outermost vinyl layer if possible. It is a messy process, so put down drop clothes, but it allowed me to strip the wallpaper off of walls and ceilings at the rate of about a room per day. I am not sure if the moisture could damage the plaster, but in our case it didn't. We found beautiful plaster walls and ceilings in wonderful condition beneath the paper.

 
By micah (Guest Post)
October 30, 20080 found this helpful

I moved into a house that was completely wallpapered. When redoing we just plastered over the wallpaper and we never had a problem. I plastered the walls myself. It's really easy- like icing a cake. Once dried we just painted over the plaster. It saved me many nights of late night wallpaper peeling and my sanity. They offer courses (or used to) on plastering at Home Depot for free.

 
November 13, 20082 found this helpful

i've been working on early 1900's homes with plaster walls for25 yrs. I'd like to say one thing first. nothing replaces manual labor. Painting over wallpaper is just the biggest mistake any homeowner can do. It's typical and is done with success. But be warned..in the future if you decide to paint again and then again you will eventually degrade the glue underneath the paper and bubbles will form or the paper will start falling off the walls.

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The proper way to fix and paint old plaster walls is to strip the old paper by any means you like. They all require hard labor. But hey, it's your house and you have a lifetime to finish it, so do it right. If the walls have not been primed or painted the go get yourself a good quality oil-based primer and seal the plaster.

Now you can go around and fix all the cracks and holes. Cracks should be gouged out and filled with plaster patch. If you like you could actually run some joint tape over the cracks and feather it back to the wall by applying 3 or 4 coats of joint compound.

After all the cracks and holes are filled to your satisfaction then you would sand and prime the patched areas with a Acrylic primer. Then lightly sand the whole wall with a 120 grade sandpaper and then caulk around baseboard, windows and doors.

Now you should re-prime the entire wall with an acrylic primer. Now you are ready for any type of finish paint you like. Jerry

 
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June 24, 2013

How do I repair plaster that was accidentally pulled off with painter's tape?
I don't have a picture.

By Ellen

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May 2, 2016

I have a house built in 1952 with plaster over drywall. The paint sheets right down to the original perfectly smooth plaster skim. What gives? This has happened in every room in the house, so it is not a localized problem.

No water leaks, nothing. Is there some special priming or sanding I should do before repainting? The plaster is extremely smooth, as if it is a skim coat or something.

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January 25, 2016

We have just moved into a old French farmhouse that we're doing up gradually. The house has a lot of genuine natural wooden fixtures throughout, such as shelves. There are some that were put up by previous occupants, but these are falling down/out. It is also a pain to hang pictures which are large, etc. as the wall just crumbles!

We have noticed a lot of the dated wallpaper is stained or peeling off and the paint is cracking on the ceilings. We have decided to decorate, preferably paint, and have removed a couple of rolls of wallpaper which peeled off intact. Underneath is not to badly marked or cracked, but there are holes from nails, etc. What kind of preparation and type of paint would be best to give a natural, light, textured effect on the old plaster surfaces? Any advice would be appreciated, as we can only imagine it will be a big job ;)

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July 28, 2014

I have a 1950s plaster/lathe home where the bathroom was done quickly-not necesarily correctly, and now I the new owner; am re-doing it with twice the effort. First-they painted latex over oil; so I am stripping all the paint off the plaster as it was cracked and bubbled. But where they replaced the bathroom fixtures, instead of dealing with the plaster and having the plaster repaired-they cut it flush and butted drywall up against it.

So-there are many walls where I have plaster for the first three feet that must be stripped; then I have drywall that is not peeling or bubbling and does not need to be stripped-and actually would do more harm than good to attempt to strip the latex paint off as the drywall would peel and rip if I tried to remove the paint.Question is, if I plan to prep the old paster with oil based Kilz prior to painting, will the oil based Kilz cover and seal the old latex paint that is on the drywall effectively? Or will I be dealing with bubbling and peeling from the oil based primer over latex in a few years? I know I can paint the final color-latex coats of paint over the oil-based Kilz after it is properly primed and cured on the plaster-but what about putting the Kilz over the existing latex on the drywall? Thanks!

By Sonja R

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April 26, 2013

I am living my mother's home, which was built in 1906. In 1993 my parents had the entire upstairs bathroom redone, removing wallpaper and using joint compound over the upper half of the walls. This was then covered with a latex semigloss paint. We had a ring support placed over the claw foot tub for a shower, which adds to the moisture in the room.

My question: For the past several years, nearly all of the joint compound has cracked and/or peeled off, revealing rough, but perfect plaster (no cracks) underneath. The joint compound will be very easy to remove, but now I wonder how this happened before restoring this. Was it the type of paint used or was it a bad match of joint compound over plaster? Should we skim coat with a thin layer of plaster to create a smooth finish before repainting? Should I use any special paint? My mother does not want to install a vent, so I realize that this will have to stand up to extra moisture. I should mention that the exact same problem with the joint compound is occurring in our downstairs back hall ceiling, which was also done in the 1990s.

By Kathy

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March 18, 2013

Prior to painting I removed a dated border. It peeled the paint underneath off revealing bare plaster which isn't covering with the paint. How can I cover this?

By Karen

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June 16, 2012

What paint either gloss or matte do I use to paint a plastered wall? I know that you add water to it, but I can't remember what paint it is. Please can you help me by answering this question? Thanx.


By Lisa M. from Essex

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January 27, 2012

We live in an old farmhouse with plaster walls. We are struggling with paint staying on the walls, especially the hallway walls and hallway ceiling. The paint is always cracking and chipping off. The last time we painted, it was only about 1 month before the cracking and chipping started. Any suggestions on what to try to get the paint to better stay on the plaster?

By Lori Ebert from NJ

Answers

January 28, 20120 found this helpful

It sounds to me that there are too many layers of paint on the walls that have been applied over the years. Too many layers of paint will do what you describing as well as what is called alligatoring. That is the paint wrinkles. I would strip a small section and repaint with latex paint to see how it holds up. Painting with a primer over alll those layers of paint will not change anything. Just continuing the peeling and cracking. You could also get an opinion from your local paint store.

 
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July 11, 2007

I have a house that was built in the 1950's and have plaster walls. I am taking down the wall paper in my kitchen and I don't know what do you next. I would like to paint it but do I need to prime it first?



Anita from Chattanooga,TN

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July 11, 20070 found this helpful

I have horse hair plaster walls, and you definitly want to prime first. One thing we ended up doing also to our walls is none of them where flat or straight, so we used a layer of wall stucco, then lightly sponged over it. Then primed and painted, it came out great.

Good Luck

 
By John (Guest Post)
July 11, 20070 found this helpful

You'll want to repair or patch any cracks or holes with stuff called joint compound first then paint over it with a geneous coating of Kilz primer. Kilz is about the best primer out there and is very tough and long lasting. Let it dry for at least 24 hours before you paint over it. Good luck!

 
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