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Painting cracked walls after wallpaper removal - Post War reno

Hello,

I am hoping to get some advice on the wall prep stage of my reno. I have had a look around here and found some great info on paint prep, including this video but our situation is a bit less straight forward, I think.

First time posting so I'll give a bit of background:

My partner and I purchased our first home last year with the intention of renovating. We don't have any reno experience but are relatively handy. It is a 1950s/60s home in near-original condition and pretty good nick (think salmon kitchen, blue bathroom, brown carpet throughout...). We have so far painted the kitchen, removed the carpet from the entire house (so. many. staples) and removed wallpaper from 2 of 3 bedrooms and the majority of the (huge) living room without too much issue using a steamer and some elbow grease.

However, now that the wallpaper is gone we have several issues:

there are cracks that had been poorly patched, and some new

poorly patched cracks and wallpaper backing residue

the thin layer of paint (or maybe primer? It only seems to be 1 coat and feels rough) under the wallpaper has peeled away in sections from the heat and scraping with the wallpaper removal.

scraped paint from wallpaper removal

condition of wall below wallpaper

and generally, there is some residue from the glue over the walls making it feel rough, and visible in areas.

We are thinking the approach would be to;

1. sand over the peeling paint and patch to even out

2. fill the cracks and gaps (a friend suggested we need joiners tape to do this properly?)

3. sand the entire walls to smooth glue residue (is there another option?)

4. prime then paint.

is it that straight forward? Am I overlooking anything? The walls and ceiling are horse hair plaster - not sure if this has any impact on how we should go about this.

Due to the age of the house we were hesitant about sanding the paint. We bought a lead-test kit, which didn't appear to show lead in the paint (however it did turn purple after a day or two, which I had read could be indicating the presence of tin. Is this dangerous?)

I know there are a lot of questions in there!

Any advice is welcomed (especially if anyone's had a similar experience!)

Thanks!

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Comments

MitchellM

@rookie Welcome to the workshop community, sorry it's taken a while to get a response.

You seem to be on the right track and have provided some great pictures to illustrate the situation. I'm sure some of our expert members will answer your questions or add to my response.

Personally I would use tape on the joins, they have cracked due to movement, adding tape will help prevent this. I rent, so when I had the same situation I just filled and some cracks have returned (house will be demolished in the coming years so neither myself or owner wanted to go to extra expense).

If it was my place I would tape the joints.

Regards the glue, attempt sanding, if it does not sand well, I would pick up a 250ml bottle of undercoat and do a test section. Try two coats, you may find it is enough to hide the layer and save additional work.

Those peeled sections however are going to require sanding and an undercoat.

Jason

Congratulations on the new house @rookie. I'm sure that all your hard work renovating will be worth it. It sounds very similar to the age and condition of our house when we bought it. Those carpet staples are a nightmare!

Your photos and descriptions of your walls were great to see what you are dealing with. I agree with Mitch that you are on the right track and don't believe you have overlooked anything. As always, I would simply remind you that doing through preparation at this stage is much more likely to get you a great result and avoid you having to do re-work down the track.

A very warm welcome to the Workshop community. We're really pleased to have you join us and look forward to seeing your renovation progress soon. Please feel free to post anytime you need a hand or have something to share. And please let me know if you ever need assistance getting the most from the site.

Jason

rookie

Thank you @MitchellM & @Jason for the advice.

We are now completely finished removing the wallpaper and ready to patch.

You're right that it's a job worth doing properly so we are going to seek a quote from a plasterer and weigh up our options.

Funny story on the wallpaper... after laboriously steaming and scraping away, I realised – with 1 room to go – that the glue was water soluble. After this we just used a spay bottle to dampen the walls and it scraped/peeled right off. Pretty annoying to find out near the end but also great, because hopefully the glue residue will come off when we sugar soap the walls.

MitchellM

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/7567#Comment_7567

@rookie Fantastic!! Make sure you post some update pictures once you are finished, I'm sure we'd all like to see.

Prawns

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/65942#Comment_65942

Ive had to repair similar looking walls at my house. If you cant sand some spots of remaining glue *dead flat* - just run under the glue with a chisel, and bog the small damage thats left behind if that happens - sometimes its faster to fix a dent/gouge than it is to sand it back completely flat and you might even get a better end result too

Regards peeling paint - dont just sand it - run a chisel under the edges of the peeling bits as well and make sure theres no more paint "about to lift" Once your sure you have cleaned up the "loose paint" , Id bog it myself - across the hard edge of old paint - and then sand it flat. Unless the paint is very very thin - the edge of the old paint might still be visible after putting new paint on is all (had that happen to me before and yeah i did sand the old edge first but in my case the old paint was a few coats thick so YMMV)

Keep in mind - Im not qualified at all but its how I would do it (Ive done quite alot of wall repairs here, holes, dents, bad paintwork etc I tend to reach for the chisel and repair a dent/gouge verses hours of sanding if the surface is pretty bad, and then you usually have to bog anyway so....)

Definatly use the tape - Ive repaired (and re-repaired) certain spots in my house where i didnt use the tape - Sometimes you seem to get away without taping - and other times you dont - its probably not worth risking skipping the tape else the whole job starts again if you find out you do need it later on if it recracks

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