The house we bought was mostly covered in fairly hideous textured wallpaper, which we’ve been stripping. There was a layer of paper underneath the textured stuff then this what was underneath.

What we would like is just a plain surface for painting but it has all these bobbles on it. What’s the simplest/cheapest way of getting a flat surface – are we going to have to get it plastered over? It’s in a hallway/stairs so not the easiest place for plastering.

As you can probably tell I’m no expert – any advice welcome, cheers! 🙂

Keep scraping till you get to the bare wall

Death to artex.

That’s hideous. Kill it with fire.

Get it skimmed, only way you’ll get a good surface from that I’d have thought.

Just another layer of paper,carry on scraping!

Go at it with an industrial stripper from a hire place. If that doesn’t shift it, get it skimmed.

Thanks folks. Pretty sure it’s not just another layer of paper – it seems very hard.

Looks like anaglypta.

Yes just another layer of 1980’s stylee wallpaper.
You’ll end up with a bigger space at this rate.

Score it steam it and strip it. There’s plaster under there somewhere!

Pop another layer up over the top,think of how much you’ll save on central heating.

I really don’t think it’s wallpaper! If it is it’s the hardest wallpaper ever known.

Bloody baby boom generation – they got the great pensions, the dossy working hours, the free education, the massive house price increase benefits…..and then they left us with this sort of shit to sort out in the name of ‘decoration’.

Go slap a pensioner!

some sort of woodchip monstrosity, probably glossed over a few times – 😆

that will be a complete b***ard to remove hence why its still there! hire a steamer and dont be suprised if the plaster comes off with it. it did in our house! we had to skim one entire bedroom and the hall. and the kitchen. and the front room.

http://www.mesotheliomasymptoms.com/household/vinyl-wallpaper

“Older buildings may still have asbestos-containing wallpaper on their interior walls.”

It may not be what you want to do, but as above I’d heartily recommend getting the room skimmed. It may cost £500 but it’ll also look fantastic and save you putting loads of effort in and still being left with dodgy painted walls.

You may think it’s a wall; actually you live inside the clutches of a giant octopus.

Thanks again everyone. I saw that stuff about asbestos – good thing we didn’t try and chip/sand the nobbles off I think! Looks like getting it skimmed is going to be the best option. I read some stuff suggesting you could do the bonding first yourself and make the job a bit cheaper so I might look into that.

Bloody baby boom generation – they got the great pensions, the dossy working hours, the free education, the massive house price increase benefits…..and then they left us with this sort of shit to sort out in the name of ‘decoration’.

Go slap a pensioner!

🙂

You may think it’s a wall; actually you live inside the clutches of a giant octopus.

Hmmm, could be onto something there.

I really don’t think it’s wallpaper! If it is it’s the hardest wallpaper ever known.

There could be several layers of paint on it – had this when stripping the walls in my parents’ house.

skimming over wallpaper ?

I will have another look but I’d be very very surprised if it’s wallpaper! I’ve stripped off several layers off wallpaper in an old house before and never seen anything like this.

And I’m not sure I want to try to hard to get it off if it might have asbestos in it.

Are we sure it isn’t some sort of egg?

If you start scraping at those things and a load of alien spider larvae come out that will be pretty upsetting. I’d email NASA.