I’ve just stripped a load of Anaglypta with a steam stripper and a garden sprayer full of wallpaper remover solution. So far so good.
In a few spots, the various coats of paint from over the years have come off with the wallpaper. Start picking at the edge and you start finding out that there are big chunks of paint that aren’t very stuck onto the coats below. And you soon end up with several square feet of paint peeled off.
The paint that is sticking to the plaster seems to be bog basic emulsion. For all I know it might be the contract emulsion from when the place was first built. The paint that’s coming off is a good thickness of a couple of colours, and is fairly plasticy.
My current plan is to scratch as much as possible off with a window scraper, and feather in any sharp edges where the paint’s still stuck down, then stick some primer over the top before putting emulsion on.
Is there a better way of clearing the paint off? Is it likely that the steamer has done something to the various layers of paint and altered the adhesion? A few of the peeling spots are around areas where there were old unfilled holes and the steam was able to get into the plaster and blow it. Or is it more likely that the paint never stuck that well in the first place and I’m going to have to do the whole room 😯 ? The house was built late 1960s if that makes any odds on what paints might have been used over the years.