Drywall skim coat over wall paper

[Guest]

In the process of removing (attempting to remove) vinyl wall paper. Walls will neeed to be textured after patch and removal of wall paper. However, the removal process is not going well. One dry wall finisher states that he can "skim coat" right over the wall paper being as how it is tight to the wall. My suggestion was to "overlay" new sheet rock over the wall paper and treat it as a new sheet rocked wall, tape, texture, ect. The latter being more expensive, time ($$$$) consuming, I am looking for an easier more efficient way out of this delema. Is "skim" coat going to "do it" over the wall paper. Will the skim coat and texture hold up over the long haul?Thanks in advance.

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

Wow. I had to pick myself up off the floor after laughing so hard. About ten years ago, when I was just starting out, a buddy of mine and I bought a run-down duplex to fix up. It had this hideous wall paper in a little room, and we tried to remove it for hours, with no luck; steamers, chemicals, scraping, the whole nine yards--nothing worked. Well, we drywall skim-coated it, went out to lunch, and when we got back, it looked like a "morphed" wall--all the moisture trapped in the compound must have finally loosened up that wallpaper, and it all slowly sloughed off down the wall, onto the trim and carpeting. Took hours to clean up, and then the NEXT coat stuck. I guess my advice is to NOT go this way, but hey, that's just my opinion.

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

Thanks Jason.... I too have my reservations about the technique of skim coating over wall paper. I guess the reason for even considering it was that the paper is vinyl coated, however, portins of the vinyl are now removed, and very stubborn paper is still attached to the wall. With my luck, (and experience) the stubborn paper will probably release after a few hours of skim coat on it. Like I said, thanks again.

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

I've had good luck coating wallpaper (both vinyl and regular paper) with oil based kilz-- then a light skim will stick, and the paper won't peel due to moisture in the paint or the mud. Make sure there is no grease on the walls though, nothing will stick to a film of cooking grease! Also, wear a good respirator--KILZ will kill ;-)

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

The oil based kilz will keep the water in the mud from getting behind the wall paper which will cease any bubbling. From there I prefer a thick coat of mud to assure the paper never peels. Since you will be using texture afterwards, the mud doesn't need to be perfect. I guarentee all my work for as long as the home is owned by the customer and I use this procedure quite often.

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

I do things similarly, but with different products. I use an exterior grade oil-based house primer to coat the wallpaper. I have found that although the primer dries slower than the Kilz, it is also more moisture resistant and thus resists the efforts of the drywall compound better. Instead of a first (heavy) coat of drywall compound, I use a setting type compound - usually something like the old style Durobond. It has incredible adhesive properties, and since it sets (you can use the 45 min. or the 90 min.), you have a shorter period of time to worry about it falling off or "alligatoring".

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

Dittos to the last 2 or 3. We do veneer plaster over wall paper the same way. We use Binn Primer by Zinzzer. This also keeps stains from bleeding through. Veneer plaster can straigten the wall better than drywall mud.

[Guest]

Re: Drywall skim coat over wall paper

Dittos to the last 2 or 3. We do veneer plaster over wall paper the same way. We use Binn Primer by Zinzzer. This also keeps stains from bleeding through. Veneer plaster can straigten the wall better than drywall mud.