Redecorating advice please

[lb99]

I am just about to move into a new house, but the livingroom needs a tidy up before we do, I am after some advice on the best(read easiest, cheapest, fastest) approach to give the livingroom a polish up before we move in, Currently the wallpaper has been stripped, leaving the surface a bit rough, with some small areas needing filling. Having never done this before, how should I prepare the walls for painting? should I just paper over the mess? what would be cheaper? please bear in mind that my budget is extreamly limited, I just need to make it liveable, until I can afford a major redecoration

[Hitcher]

Paint, in a neutral colour, and a roller. Most paint manufacturers have textured finish paints that are ideal for this.

[JimO]

I am just about to move into a new house, but the livingroom needs a tidy up before we do, I am after some advice on the best(read easiest, cheapest, fastest) approach to give the livingroom a polish up before we move in, Currently the wallpaper has been stripped, leaving the surface a bit rough, with some small areas needing filling. Having never done this before, how should I prepare the walls for painting? should I just paper over the mess? what would be cheaper? please bear in mind that my budget is extreamly limited, I just need to make it liveable, until I can afford a major redecoration

papering over it wont work as the paper will show every rough bit and give you the shits for years to come, buy a bucket of plus 4 and a wide broadknife give the rough bits a couple of coats over 2 days then sand with a 220 grit paper. it wont be perfect but will be alot better than doing nothing.

[lb99]

Paint, in a neutral colour, and a roller. Most paint manufacturers have textured finish paints that are ideal for this.

what? just paint over all the shit?, obvously I will fill nail holes joins ect, but should I just paint over the rest?

[lb99]

papering over it wont work as the paper will show every rough bit and give you the shits for years to come, buy a bucket of plus 4 and a wide broadknife give the rough bits a couple of coats over 2 days then sand with a 220 grit paper. it wont be perfect but will be alot better than doing nothing.

what is plus 4, and what is a broadknife? I'll probably go for paint coz wall paper always looks like a hassle to me

[pzkpfw]

Yep.

With filler and sanding in the roughest bits, and painting with a rough roller (using matt or textured paint) you should do well enough until you can afford to do the whole thing "properly".

If you want perfect, you need to have the whole thing plastered (assuming it really is too bad to wallpaper over); I've learned myself that plastering is not easy to get perfect - so I reckon you'd be looking at an expert to do it.

You either want perfect (which = $), or good enough (which = $; later).

Cheers,

P.S. One thing I learned by looking at brand new houses and office renovations; is that even the experts don't always get everything perfect. Don't sweat at the imperfectons in your own renovations.

[lb99]

paint is looking pretty good right now, I'll go for the $ later option, and get to the moving walls and stuff later, when do the new regs that prevent me from working on my new house come in?

[spookytooth]

Plus 4 is a winstone product its basicly garbage in a bucket.But it is easish to sand.Any of the yank all purpouse ready mix plasters are way better to use
A bit hard to say what u need to do to get what finish with out seeing it Loose paper either delaminated gig or bits of old wallpaper need to be removed befor ya pain ,as the water in the pain will lift them also if it wasnt taped when first stopped then joins will prolly be cracked and will show through .I would stop the worst bits and toss a heavey embost paper over it

[Dilligaf]

When we bought this house, we stripped the wallpaper hoping we'd just be able to slap the paint over, but the finish on the walls was not good enough. after investigating our options (wallpapering, getting replastered, buying lining paper and then painting), we were told about a product from the very helpful people at Resene - called broadwall surface prep. Effectively, it's like a paint on plaster which then requires a sanding - you get left with a few mms of plaster that smoothes the wall. In fact I was REALLY impressed with how the walls turned out. (Of course the bigger divots and holes needed a going over first with the stuff you get from any hardware).
The sanding I will admit is a PITA because the dust is annoying but for glass smooth walls, worth it.

[Sniper]

Paint bomb.....

[Cajun]

me and wife are in process of doing final touches on our place before selling and moving up

I would say just sand the walls and paper again, painting walls which are not preped correctly can be a c$%t, wallpaper by long shot i would think be quickest method, you could easy have lounge finshed in a space of a weekend

[lb99]

you could easy have lounge finshed in a space of a weekend

first I gotta deal with shit like this, " hmmmm I wonder how much of the fireplace is left behind this board"

[s8306]

Judgeing by that picture this is what i,d do.Get rid of any loose paper,seal the walls with a coat of pigmented sealer,this will bind the surface so you can give it a good sand,resene sureseal is good for this as it acts as a saturation primer for unsound substrates.Stop out defects in walls with a pre-mixed finish compound, size and hang an embossed paper.If you,re going to redec down the track then this is the option i would take.Cheers.

[JimO]

yay a concrete chimney that will be a monster job to get rid of

[crashe]

Get rid of the 'arched' doorway...... that is so out of fashion now.

Concrete fireplace - Are you wanting to have some sort of fireplace there?
If so you can get the 'Kent' fireplace to fit in there or a 'gas' fireplace to go in that area.

If you dont want a fireplace........ shit that is gonna take some work to get rid of it.... Jack hammer and sledge hammer will work..... you can hire them if you dont own them.

Strip off all the remaining wallpaper, fill up the gaps and sand it back....
If big holes, fill them a little at a time...... and allow the filler to dry between each lot.
When it is all smooth to how you want it..... (use your hands/fingertips to 'feel' it) then seal the walls with a paint sealer. Then put on paint with a roller.

If the house is from the 1970's and the wallpaper is from that era, then you will need a certain type of sealer (cant recall the name of it sorry but paint shops will know what its called - not cheap) to be painted up on the walls, as the wallpaper paste from that era, clashes with new paint of today (bubbles and blisters) and you will then have to strip it right back off again.

Either way, this job wont be done in a couple of days.
Have fun thou.


EDIT: Pigmented sealer is the stuff I was mentioning just above.