Phil,

Susan and I have done quite a few remodels on our own and painted over wallpaper several times.  We found that it worked fine if we glued down any loose seams first and ran a skim coat of drywall mud over any seams that showed after priming.  We then re-primed the drywall mud and painted -- it worked great and couldn't tell there was paper underneath!

I have painted over wallpaper.  Don't do it with the vinyl like wallpaper.. paint doesn't adhere to well to it.  I like tims suggestion of glueing down the paper at the seams.  If the paper is on very well and you really can't see the seams, all the better.  

Shelly

Shelly:

I painted over the vinyl like wallpaper and it turned out great. It had a raised pattern and we used a bronze color and it is fantastic.  When people come in my house the ooh and awe over it.  the paint did adhere to it well.  So I must be lucky.  

I never thought of using dry wall mud on seams but I will try that if we remodel any.  At my house I usually take all the wallpaper down with Downey and water.  It comes off quickly and the house smells great.

Fast forward one year and he'll be wallpapering over the paint over the wallpaper. You'll see that it provides great insulation and soundproofs the room.

LOL Phil, you are so right (as usual).  Don't you just love the 70 year old houses that you go to remove wallpaper only to find about 5 layers of paper and an equal number of layers of paint?!  Fun, fun, fun!

If the wallpaper wasn't properly adhered to the wall but looks like it is one of the things that can happen is that it could create air pockets from the paper wanting to peal off right in the center.

Remember it is paper. What happens to paper when it gets wet?

So test it on an out of the way area "FIRST". If that happens you could find that you now have to go ahead and remove the wallpaper and paint.

Hi Phil, My late father's home was a great wallpaper experience for me, when I needed to clean it up, prior to selling. I found that those little steamer shark machines work wonders to remove wallpaper. There were 17 layers of wallpaper with paint in between several of them. No, I'm not kidding the house was bought new in 1961!! But the job was easily remedied, I can't say enough about those shark steamers, for cleaning everything!

Hi Phil, very interesting post. Gloria, no kidding. Downey and water works?

I had a professional painter come and help me on on of my flips that had a LOT of wallpaper.  He got a garden sprayer and filled it up with hot water and diff.  Then he put down towels were the wall meets the floor.  He first scored the wall paper and then hosed it down the the sprayer.  Kept it VERY wet and it started to peal off very easy after 15 min.

I am not a fan of painting over wallpaper, but if you do it take Tim & Susans suggestions.  There is nothing worse than lines in the paint.

Leaving to the professionals . . . I'm not in that union. :)

I actually have some 'professional' experience in both painting and wall papering... paid the bills during college.  When removing, I do it the way Joe said when needed.  I first check to see if it will come off without anything and then try just hot water... a surprising number of glues will respond to just water if the walls were primed properly prior to papering.  

Also, when 'scoring' be careful to just cut through the top vinyl layer of the paper. If you cut through to the drywall you may end up having the top layer of drywall paper come off too and then you have a big mess on your hands.

With some papers, the top layer (vinyl or foil or whatever) will come off dry leaving only the backing paper and glue to be removed.  This is when the water or Diff in the garden sprayer works well.  The part I HATE is the gummy, messy glue and you absolutely must get all of it cleaned off the wall prior to painting or it will gum up again with the paint.

Ugh - I hate removing wallpaper when it is stubborn!!!!

Another 'trick' we used on one home we flipped was to paper over the old paper with the 'textured' paper that is meant to be painted.  That worked really well and looked great.  The seams were totally invisible.

I'm at a point in my life, now, that I will be paying someone else to do any of that kind of work.  I still love the woodworking - cabinets, crown molding and things like that but I hate plumbing, electrical, flooring, papering and painting.  

I painted over wallpaper once in my first apartment.  Triple decker  100+ years old. I believe the paper was original and I had a gut feeling that the wallpaper was the only thing still holding it together.  Lived there for four years with no problem!  Painted the floor too.  

YES!  Yes you can.  Here are some pointers that I've figured out with it.

1. Make sure you have the paper secured well.  If it's pulling up anywhere, then put the adhesive in there and glue it down again!

2. MUD the seams.  Not just glue then, but a light coat of joint compound (AKA Mud) over the seams will secure the seams from pulling up.

3. Texture.  This doesn't have to be difficult but it can be confusing until you do it once or twice... Get your KILZ primer and a bucket of joint compound (again, commonly called mud).  Get you a bucket to mix it in.  Then take anywhere from 2-5 parts mud to one part KILZ primer and mix it well with a paint mixer and drill.  The reason I say 2-5 parts is that it depends on how much texture you need.  Obviously if you go 5 parts to 1 then it will be a very thick, heavy texture and if you go 2 to 1, it will be much thinner.  In most cases, a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 will work GREAT!  Get a thick knap roller and apply like you would paint or primer.  When it dries, your wall will be sealed up and ready for paint AND because you used KILZ, it will paint better and quicker.

I have pulled wallpaper down and I have not pulled it down...by far, it is easier NOT to.  The last time I pulled paper off, it pulled chunks of sheetrock down too and made for a very difficult recovery! It appears to me to be very durable to do it like I just mentioned though.

Roger paints over wallpaper on that show when time does not allow removal of the paper. If the paper is down securely it is ok to paint over it. But if you want it to look nice and you want top dollar probably should do it right. But if the carpet is bad and won't be replaced don't worry about the walls being perfect either.

Ron,

That tip about putting the Kilz in with the mud is great.  Thanks!  

It works for us Tim!  I'm redoing an office right now with that technique and the kitchen, with it's WAY outdated wallpaper is NEXT!

Trick from a wallpaper/painter specialty guy that came to a home show here:  use diff and fabric softener with hot, hot water.  Saturate the paper.  Put up 1mm plastic over the saturation and let it "cook" for about 15 minutes.  Then scrape / peel it off.  I did it my bathroom and it helped a lot.  

Shelz

You can also have your Kilz tinted to your wall color if you are using a darker color and it works.

Well, looks like this blog is turning into a handyman's forum - cool.  

Does it matter if the kilz is the oil base or water base?  Normally, I use the oil when I use it as a primer because it seems to 'hide' and 'adhere' better to more surfaces than the water.

Maybe this will motivate me to finish the hall bath project I started here in my own home over a year ago. LOL

Susan came home with tile samples and pricing for new custom vanity and granite counters, etc.  Good golly, that stuff has gotten expensive!  I hate spending thousands of $$$ on a bathroom that nobody ever uses anyway.  Oh well...

I have only used it on water based. Since hubby is in the construction biz we have a custom cabinet guy that can gives us a good price. I think he will ship. Tim, if you want I can find out if he ships and get you a price quote from them.

Tim, unless you are going to paint with oil, I don't think you should use oil Kilz.  My husband did that, used an oil based primer, and I walked into the house and freaked at the smell, and knew he was using a latex paint.  I said, call the Home Depot and see what they say.  Their answer, No Way Jose!!  So he went and bought a primer called Gripper that can go from oil to latex.  And had to re-prime and then paint.

by the way, when we wanted to paint our formally wood stained vanity, we used a liquid sander, then gripper, then latex paint. Worked great!!

Shelly

Dr. Phil,

I rehab and it does work.  It has to do with the humidity.   If you have high humidity and use cheap paint - you'll know it within the first 30 minutes because the wall paper actually starts falling down.  Kind of cool but not a nice surprise.

If it is in the bathroom, the additional weight of the paint will pull the paper down eventually.

If there are not "even" seams where the sides touch, you will want to "mud" those seams and then lightly sand and it blends in perfect.

Good paints to use are Benjamin Moore and Glidden Commercial.  

Sorry Phil, not in the painters union either . . . lalala

<<< ------ "Outsourcing Specialist"

Hey, everyone has to be good at something . . . LOL

It is not a good idea to paint latex over oil based paint.  I did this on an exterior deck and the whole deck bubbled and pealed!  What a mess.  I had to sand it down and repaint.  

I believe they mentioned one time on the show that you SHOULD NOT be using water-based paint to minimize the chance of the paper bubbling and coming off the wall.

I've used the textured paintable wallpaper before on top of 70's paneling, and that worked wonderfully.  I've considered just painting outdated wallpaper before (have seen it done several times, and it usually comes out looking pretty well) but after watching a "This Old House" espisode a while ago where the new owners were trying to strip the wallpaper that had been painted, I learned that it's an almost impossible job after old wallpaper has been painted ...(they had to literally  sand the walls down or something) because the paint soaks through the old paper into the wall  - making the normal scoring and fabric softener method of removing the paper not work.   Okay...it looks like I'm rambling ...

That's so sweet Phil - thanks -  I don't post too often, because I'm SHY.  (Not a good trait in a REALTOR I suppose...but I'm working on it.)  Love to lurk though...I learn so darn much here.

Cindy

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to REliberation in the month of August! There were a lot