Hi, We have recently purchased our first house. Before moving in we painted my daughters bedroom (directly over wall paper). We stripped my sons walls, filled, pva glued and painted. We have stripped our walls. Now we are a bit stuck....we want to paint walls, we know that in a few years we will potentially need to rewire house. Do we use lining paper and paint? Or several friends have suggested we sugar soap, gill, pva glue then directly paint on walls in view of potential rewire a few years down the line. If we paper then we are really worried about removing radiator to paper behind. We have not had much diy experience but keen to learn. Currently sleeping on our mattress on the floor while We do our room and would live to feel confident in what We are doing!! :-/ Thanks in advance.
Personally if the walls are in reasonable condition, a good sand down and fill, fine sand/clean then paint with a good quality matt paint. Not sure what you are doing with the PVA though! I'm sure there will be plenty of people on soon telling you off
If bare plaster: mist coat of 50/50 water/paint. There's a good briefing on painting bare plaster on mybuilder. If it's wall paper just give it a clean and crack on. Any rewiring job will be messy regardless if the electrician needs to chase/dig trenches into walls.
We were told to use pva over filler. Is this wrong? As we have stripped walls, now if we just fill and clean, then white wash with 50/50 paint/water we should be good to go? Thanks for all of your help.
Wash all walls thoroughly with Sugar Soap to aid removal of any residual wallpaper paste, if you don't wash and then rinse off you stand a very good chance of ending up with a room full of paint crazed walls as the paint will react with the wallpaper adhesive. As for PVA...no.
Hi LadyPaH. Don't use PVA before painting, ever ever ever. Oh, you already have? But you got away with it? Phew... Usually if you emulsion over PVA, it 'reactivates' and becomes sticky again, and can leave an awful texture when you paint over it. You can certainly use PVA to help bond a hole in plaster you are about to fill, but don't PVA over this. "...if we just fill and clean, then white wash with 50/50 paint/water we should be good to go?" Yes. (Tho' perhaps 75:25 paint:water) Mind you, if there are any traces of wallpaper paste left on the walls, then don't be surprised if that reactivates too, and swells up to make a noticeable texture in the applied paint. I've read on here chust today about Zinsser Gardz which sounds ideal if you have any dodgy surfaces such as powdery ones or those with traces of paste etc. So, roll on a coat of diluted matt emulsion, and allow it to dry fully. That'll tell you what state your walls are in - quite likely better than you imagine. Any raised spots can be sanded, and any obvious 'lows' can be filled with a 'fine surface filler'. If you anticipate a rewiring in a few years, with all the resultant mess, I wouldn't bother with lining paper at this time as it'll only make it harder to patch it all up afterwards. After the rewire, the channels will be straight-forward to fill in and sand flat. If you then reckon the walls in general could do with improving, then your options are (a) more sanding a filling as before (cheap, but hard work...), (b) use lining paper first (very possibly a pro job, but not too costly) or (c) a complete new skim of plaster, around 3mm thick (usually the best finish, but will be the most costly too). Meanwhile, lock up that PVA...
I haven't used that stuff myself - only chust read about on here yesterday - but it does sound ideal. I would happily use Everbuild 406 Stabiliser for these kinds of jobs as it's really 'watery' and soaks right in, and sticks to pretty much anything (including traces of old paint). But I see that Gardz is also like this - a watery liquid that soaks right in. And it's reasonably priced too. (Even repairs torn/missing p'board paper layer? Maaaan, that's goooood... )
When I was renovating my son's house I got excellent advice from this forum (and have since too). My son wanted to paper his walls and sealed with size. Then he got bored and decided to paint. The paint crazed and he spent ages removing crazed paint and size. He then started again! Steve
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